


The Storm That Consumes All

by KibibyteKibble



Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Backstory, Bittersweet Ending, Canon Queer Character of Color, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Djinni & Genies, Dorks in Love, Elona, Falling In Love, Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire, Interspecies Romance, Love Poems, M/M, Magic, Minor Canonical Character(s), Music, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 06:51:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 55,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19223878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KibibyteKibble/pseuds/KibibyteKibble
Summary: A man and djinn share songs, stories, secrets, and sunrises, finding their freedom in one another against all the odds. On a sandswept isle, one of them was lost forever: we carry his loss together.Two lovers embrace, solace in a dangerous world. May all lovers be free someday.





	1. The Song of a Cloud

**Author's Note:**

> After learning of these two while completing the _Lasting Bonds_ collections, I found they were too precious for me to leave them alone, and I had to find out what their story was. Characters, setting, and direct quotations borrowed from ArenaNet with love. <3

Though the sun over the Elon riverlands could scorch the ground at high noon, the air was moist and changeable. At sunrise, mist still lingered in the shade between the rocks, where Nakis could lay out a mat that faced east to recite his dawn prayers. No one would miss him until supper, when the crew expected each forager to turn in his daily share. He shouldered off his empty pack and unrolled the small rug of woven flax that he kept strapped to the outside. It was grubby and worn, but cushioned his knees and shins adequately for the purpose.

"Enlighten me, Goddess, and show me truth. Open my eyes that I might see. Guide me along paths known and unknown. Save me from darkness and evil..."

Nakis kept his voice at a murmur through the familiar repetitions, out of habit more than fear of being overheard. Joko's enforcers almost never ventured this far north of the wall, and the Snakebite crew didn't have much use for religion, but didn't punish it either. If Kormir was out there somewhere, Nakis thought, she would know the words in his heart, even those he didn't speak aloud. _What has kept you from making your presence known? Where were you when we cried out in our suffering? Why have you abandoned us?_

The words of the devotional were soothing in their rhythm, even if Nakis could no longer find comfort in their meaning. "In the name of the Goddess, who sees truth, who hears truth, who knows truth: what is and was and will be. All this is true." Sunbeams slanted over the waters by the time he finished and opened his eyes. Retying the knots that secured his prayer mat, Nakis yawned and surveyed the riverbank for a likely spot to begin his search. Most of the grasses that lined the Elon were tough and inedible, and the mud could be perilous for the unwary, but Nakis had a talent for geomancy that made him the best forager among the Snakebites. He focused his awareness into the earth below his feet, attuning to the vibrations he felt through the rock and soil.

A wild hunting eel was burrowing nearby. An aqua stalker and her mate were pacing by the entrance to the warren of caves to the north; if they ventured too far into Snakebite territory, the camp guards would dispatch them with efficiency and ruthlessness. It was a dog-eat-dog world out here, so to speak. _Hydra eats cheetah, cheetah eats eel, eel eats beetle, beetle eats root..._ There, a bowshot eastward, up the slope: a giant beetle moving with purpose toward its breakfast. Nakis smiled as he hopped across the rocks to reach the clump of vegetation before the beetle did.

This early in the season of the Phoenix, there were still plenty of roots to gather; the Snakebites would feast on fresh cassava flatbread tonight. If Nakis was lucky, he'd be assigned to kitchen duty and Deenah would allow him to taste her lentil sauce, unless the gardeners deemed it necessary to save the lentils for next season's planting. His mouth watered in anticipation of a meal: the coarse bitterness of the flatbread, mixed with the hearty warmth of a cup of spiced lentil stew; the easing of hunger for a few hours until the night's rest—his imaginings inspired enough cheer for him to whistle as he worked. He wandered, pulling up cassava plants from the mud, always staying a few steps ahead of the beetles whose paths he followed. Like a beetle, he used his sense of earth and sun to orient himself, trusting his own skill to lead him back to the caves when he had filled his pack with roots.

Scarcely three hours had passed before Nakis's pack could hold no more. Satisfied in his efforts, he found a dry spot in the lee of a rock to squat and chew on a sugar rib. Uncooked, the spine was not sweet, but lasted long enough that he could trick his stomach and pretend that he was eating something of substance. The Snakebites didn't let any of their number starve, though that wasn't saying much. Surviving at all, Nakis reasoned, was more than he could have hoped for. He was fortunate to still have his life; to his knowledge, few exiles had ever crossed the lands beyond the wall. Certainly none had ever returned. The corsairs who made their home in the grottoes found most stragglers who came this way, and they only suffered a few to live: those who were strong, like Matiya and Zeinab, or useful, like Nakis. The others they culled. A quick blade across the throat was a kindness here—kinder than starvation. Or being eaten by a sand lion.

The sun climbed higher, until the shade of Nakis's rock was almost gone. He held up a hand and squinted against the glare, spotting a cliff that shaded the wetland further to the southeast. He could sense no predators in that direction, so he walked toward it.

After some minutes Nakis neared the cliff. He pushed through vines and leaves to find a small pool beyond, clearer than the surrounding muddy waters, fed from a stream that poured over the cliff edge. Dragonflies hummed in the leaves and water trickled down the rocks. Nakis sighed in pleasure as he settled against the smooth stones beside the waterfall and let his pack slip from his shoulders. Ponds such as this one were ephemeral in the riverlands, disappearing or changing form with every rainfall, yet he had never seen one as quiet or as beautiful as this. He would enjoy the peacefulness of this place while it lasted.

The sound of rushing water, too loud to have come from the stream, distracted Nakis from his thoughts. An echoing voice startled him to full attention a few seconds later. "Who enters my domain?"

A tall figure was approaching; Nakis hadn't noticed its presence, he realized, because it had no feet to touch the ground. It floated closer, arms crossed in a gesture of challenge—only one of its two pairs of arms. The other pair were at the figure's hips, not unlike Deenah's scolding pose when she chased people out of her kitchen for stealing a taste before a meal was ready. The edges of the figure were blurry, as though Nakis were observing it through layers of rain or mist. He leapt to his feet, splashing in his haste to bow and utter an apology to what could only be a djinn, the spiritual guardian of this place.

"I beg your pardon," he said, bent forward at the waist with his palms pressed together. "My name is Nakis. I only stumbled across your pool while looking for a place to rest—I meant no intrusion." He looked as far up as he could from under his hair. The djinn had floated close enough for Nakis to see the bottom of its body, trailing off in wisps of vapor. He swallowed, cursing himself for relying too much on his earth-sense. If he had looked, he surely would have seen some clue of the djinn's presence. "Please forgive me. I should have known this pond was too lovely to be uninhabited."

The djinn stopped when it was so close that Nakis could no longer see it at all, only feel where the breeze of its nearness ruffled his hair. It spoke. "Have you a title among men?" The djinn's voice had a deepness to it, suggesting it might be male.

"No," Nakis stammered, not daring to look up. "Just Nakis."

"Rise, mortal Nakis. You enter here as my guest." The djinn's words were solemn, but not unfriendly. "I'm pleased that you appreciate the loveliness of this place—come, sit! Listen to the music of the waters."

Nakis straightened, observing that all four of the djinn's arms were now relaxed at his sides and the edges of his body were more defined, though they still rippled like the calm surface of the pond around them. The djinn was waving one hand in a beckoning gesture toward the center of the pool. Nakis approached him.

"I heard you whistling a song earlier," the djinn commented. He hovered before Nakis at the level of the water's surface, two hands splayed behind him and two clasped in what Nakis supposed was his lap. "It was quite a pleasant tune, for one produced by a mortal. What was it?"

"The tune I was whistling..." Nakis thought back, folding his legs underneath him to kneel by the djinn on a flattened rock. "Oh, I was whistling a song from my home village... It's about a cloud."

"A cloud?" The djinn leaned forward, head tilted to one side. "It didn't sound anything like a cloud song to me." To Nakis's astonishment, an actual cloud was forming between two of the djinn's hands as he spoke. The djinn sent the ball of mist floating upward from his lap. It grew dark and heavy with rain as it expanded, lightning crackling inside it. Then the djinn clapped both pairs of hands at once, making the conjured cloud burst above their heads. Nakis jumped, expecting to be drenched in the sudden shower, but each drop evaporated before it reached him. The two of them were surrounded by a curtain of shimmering, hissing steam that dissipated into the air, until the sky was as clear and silent as before. The djinn laughed. "That is the song of a cloud!"

Nakis looked at the djinn in amazement. "What is your name, if I may ask?"

The djinn settled back into a resting pose. "I am Zohaqan, Spirit of the Storm," he said. The words boomed like thunder, though he spoke quietly, making Nakis shiver. "Will you sing me your cloud song, mortal Nakis? I'd like to hear it."

"All right." Nakis cleared his throat. He summoned his voice with some difficulty, wobbling into a clear tenor after the first few notes. " _I am a cloud in the heaven's height, The stars are lit for my delight_..."

" _I throw my mantle over the moon_  
_And I blind the sun on his throne at noon,_  
_Nothing can tame me, nothing can bind,_  
_I am a child of the heartless wind_..."

When he had finished the song, Nakis took a breath and looked at Zohaqan to gauge the djinn's reaction. What looked like tattered cloth partially shrouded Zohaqan's body, billowing into mist. His face, lacking human features, was difficult to read, but his eyes glowed blue with intelligence. Nakis looked away, finding himself unable to hold his gaze.

"A curious song," Zohaqan said after a while. "Like a riddle. It tells of the nature of the cloud, without sounding like one."

"I defer to your expertise on the nature of clouds," said Nakis, bowing his head to the djinn. "I think of it merely as a cradle song from my childhood." He frowned, turning his train of thought from memories of home. "Do you remember songs from your youth? How long have you been here—if that's not too impertinent a question? I've never seen you out here before."

Zohaqan considered for a moment. "Djinn do not have age, or youth. We simply are. My songs are rain and thunder, wind and hail." He swept an arm to indicate the surrounding pond. "My home is not a fixed place. Every storm changes the shape of the waters over the land. Sometimes I am in the sky; at other times grounded. I have been here as long as the rain has fallen over the river. Nearly two hundred years, since the last time the Elon changed course."

"Really?" Nakis glanced up to meet the djinn's strange eyes. "Why did the Elon change course two hundred years ago?"

"Your human king, Palawa Joko, dammed its flow to flood these plains during his conquest of Elona," Zohaqan replied, with some puzzlement. "Are your lives so short that your history has already forgotten it?"

"No..." Nakis tried to hide the bitterness in his voice. "Joko is not my king, not any more. I'm an exile." He rubbed his chin, leaving a streak of mud behind, and huffed out a breath. "We didn't really learn any history in my village, only whispered secrets of our people's past."

"What secrets?"

Nakis fingered the beads that circled his wrist. "My parents taught me the truth of the Goddess Kormir, but King Joko doesn't allow anyone to worship her or even speak of her."

Zohaqan said, "But you are an exile now, and can learn history as you please?"

Nakis hiccuped a laugh. "As I please! I can do very little as I please. I live at the mercy of the corsairs who found me after I was exiled." He indicated the pack he had left at the edge of the pool. "As long as I gather enough food each day, they let me live another night." He shrugged. "I guess I could learn whatever I want, if I had any books, but corsairs have about as much use for history as they do for religion."

"Are you bound to serve them? These corsairs?"

"In a way, I guess." Nakis flexed his shoulders. "I must work my share as long as I stay with them, and there isn't anywhere else for me to go. If I left them, I'd die pretty quickly out in the desert."

"I see." Zohaqan unfurled his body and drifted toward Nakis's pack by the waterfall, peering at it. "I too am bound to these waters, which rise as clouds and fall as storms. The cliffs to the east gather my clouds here." He pointed into the pack's opening. "You've gathered these ugly things for food, you say? They don't seem befitting for a meal, even for mortals. What do you call them?"

"Cassava roots," Nakis said, pushing himself to his feet to follow the djinn. "They are a bitter poison when uncooked, but can be ground into flour for bread. Beetles can digest their leaves, but I can't." His stomach gurgled, reminding him of the need to return to camp to conserve his energy before a meager supper. "I thank you for your company, Zohaqan. I should probably go now—I need to be back at camp by sundown." He bowed to the djinn and reached down for his pack, but Zohaqan moved to block him.

"You are hungry." It wasn't a question.

"Yes," Nakis replied. "Mortals need to eat, I'm sure you know."

"You can't cook the food you've gathered?"

Nakis shook his head. "I can't just light it on fire. It needs to be milled, mixed with salt and something acidic—I don't have the energy or equipment to prepare food out here."

The djinn looked around at the river grasses and buzzing insects. "Could you eat any plant or animal that is cooked?"

Nakis shook his head more slowly this time, his lip quirking up. "Not all food is... nutritious. It needs to contain nutrients," he went on. "You know, fuel? Elements that the body can use?"

"Elements," repeated Zohaqan. "I think I understand. Just as not all combinations of elements are pleasing to the senses, so only certain combinations can fuel a mortal body, while others would harm you." Zohaqan touched one of the cassava roots sticking out of the pack. "Bread that you make of only this," he said, "would not be so nutritious, I imagine. Not all of its poison can be removed through cooking."

Nakis wrinkled his nose. "It's better than starving to death—it fills the belly a little. We use it to augment the meals we make from vegetables we grow back at the camp, and the meat of any eels we can spare." He looked down at his unappealing burden. "That's why I need to get going. It takes a long time to prepare these for eating."

Zohaqan moved aside to allow Nakis to scoop up his pack and settle it on his shoulders. "Time... I see." He crossed two arms and rested the other two on what passed for his hips. "Will you have time tomorrow to return here? To finish our conversation?"

Nakis thought he could find the pool again, but he hesitated. "Only if I gathered enough to meet my quota... I guess I could come back, if I didn't stay too long."

"I will await your return," Zohaqan said, then paused before speaking again. "It's strange to address a mortal with no title. May I call you friend?"

Nakis smiled. "Sure. I'd be honored. You'd be my only friend out here."

Zohaqan shifted closer and held out one of his right hands. "I'll see you tomorrow, then, friend Nakis."

Nakis took the djinn's hand and shook it solemnly. It was smooth and solid to the touch; like ice, but not as cold, with long tapered fingers. "Goodbye, Zohaqan." He waved to the djinn as he left the sheltered pond, smiling. Zohaqan could not smile, but he raised one hand to wave farewell, mist softening the lines of his body.

The trip back to the grottoes was shorter than the way he had taken outbound, no more than an hour's hike at a steady pace. Nakis pondered, chewing the sugar rib as he walked. Making friends with a djinn wasn't even the strangest thing that had happened to him this year, but it was by far the most pleasant, he decided. Pleasant, that is, after the initial shock of realizing he'd bumbled into the domain of a being who could have blasted him to pieces if his manners weren't up to scratch. For a spirit of storm and cloud, Zohaqan had seemed quite happy to converse with him, though. Perhaps he was lonely? Could djinn get lonely?

As amiable as Zohaqan had been, Nakis knew better than to renege on his agreement to visit the djinn again. He intended to keep his promise even if he hadn't finished his work by noon tomorrow. Frankly, he'd rather face a rebuke from the Snakebite cutthroats than find out what would happen if he annoyed a thunderstorm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The text of Nakis's song is from "The Cloud" by Sara Teasdale, published in her 1915 poetry collection _Rivers to the Sea_.


	2. Riddles

It was a matter of time to wait for Nakis's return. Djinn by nature do not give a second thought to the passage of time, and storms are not accustomed to waiting for anyone. Nevertheless, Zohaqan found himself looking forward to seeing Nakis again. He usually chased mortals away if they disturbed him—chirruping insects and clamoring humans, hissing eels and roaring hydras all alike. But Nakis's whistling had not disturbed him; it had piqued his curiosity, as had Nakis himself. A man who sang though he was hungry, who saw the beauty in the stillness of a pool of water after a rainfall, was one Zohaqan was glad to have met.

The stars' course across the sky was unobscured by clouds tonight, while the Spirit of the Storm was resting. He floated on the mists above the pool, waiting for sunrise, stirring the waters around him. The reflected light of stars and fireflies rippled on the surface of the pond. Zohaqan pulled a tendril of wind to carry a firefly toward him, observing it closely. The particular combination of earth and fire essence that caused it to glow was not something he had considered before. Its light dimmed and brightened in a pattern that held some meaning for the other fireflies. Either _stay away_ or _mate with me_ , Zohaqan would guess. Most communication between mortals seemed to consist of one message or the other. He released it back to its fellows.

Fading stars signaled that daylight was approaching. As the sun ascended, Zohaqan watched the fireflies' lights blink out, and the shapes of beetles begin to emerge from their burrows in search of food. By the time the sun reached its zenith, he was absorbed in thoughts of the insects, such that when Nakis finally appeared Zohaqan greeted him with a riddle.

 _"I carry a star behind me, singing without a voice._  
_I walk on moonlight and sleep in the sunlight._  
_What am I?_ "

Nakis wiped sweat from his brow as he laid down his pack, crouching by the pond to join Zohaqan. "Hmm. The wind? No, the wind doesn't sleep in the sunlight... Oh! A firefly!"

Zohaqan nodded, pleased. "Yes. I've been watching them and wondering how they speak to one another. Do you know any songs of fireflies?"

"Not fireflies, no. My village had more wasps than fireflies, and no one had the inclination to sing about them." Nakis dipped a hand in the water to splash along his neck and arms. "I think I remember a song about a bee, though. ' _Fly high and low, fly fast and slow; through my dance I will show you where the lilies grow sweet in the sun_...' Eh, I forget the rest."

"Not a very good representation of human poetry," Zohaqan declared. "Certainly much cruder than the song about the cloud you sang yesterday."

"What do you expect? It's a kids' rhyme." Nakis was smiling, but the way he shifted his weight from foot to foot suggested that he felt discomfort. It must be that his body was too warm—exertion in the humid air had overheated him. Zohaqan sent a breeze laced with ice crystals blowing toward Nakis to cool his body. "Ah! That feels wonderful. Thank you." Nakis settled back on his heels. "If you're such an expert, then," he said, "why don't you tell me a song you think is a good representation of human poetry?"

Zohaqan thought back to a friend he had known who had served a human prince, far away in the northern mountains. Ellutherius had been fond of lyric verse, which described beauty and emotion through human senses in a way that djinn could understand. "I know a song of the bee," Zohaqan said, "by Kalidasa, a human bard who lived before your Primeval Dynasty. I could recite it for you."

"Mmm." The humming sound Nakis made in his chest could have been agreement, or a prompt to continue. In a slow, measured lilt, Zohaqan began his recitation.

" _Spring the warrior hither comes,_  
_Bow-string formed by rows of bees,_  
_And his darts tipped with buds_  
_Wound our hearts with sweet love-longing._

 _Now the trees put forth their flowers;_  
_On the lakes, the lilies fair_  
_Show their heads midst the waves,_  
_Melting hearts with sweet love-longing._ "

Nakis's eyes were closed. Perhaps he was tired enough to sleep? His head stretched back to catch Zohaqan's cool breeze against his throat. Not sleeping, then, merely shutting off his sight to better appreciate sound and touch. How peculiar that mortals were able to control their senses in this way, that blocking one sense could enhance another. Zohaqan continued the poem in a murmur.

" _What fair maid can vie with Spring?_  
_What sweet voice the cuckoo's song?_  
_Or smiling teeth the jasmine's hue?_  
_Or rosy lips the opening flowers?_

 _Bending down with blushing buds,_  
_Flaming mango branches wave_  
_To and fro with the breeze,_  
_Filling hearts with sweet love-longing._ "

The pulse of Nakis's blood was quicker than before, his breathing slower. Zohaqan could sense the currents in the man's body, water and air and earth, as much a mystery to the djinn as the messages of fireflies. Nakis's throat moved when he swallowed, and his muscles convulsed in a shiver; he must be too cold now. Zohaqan stopped the chilly draft, instead pulling the humidity out of the air around Nakis to allow his skin to cool itself.

" _And within the lotus flower_  
_Dwells her love, the murmuring bee_ ,  
_Who with kiss and embrace_  
_Satisfies her sweet love-longing._ "

Silence followed Zohaqan's recitation, in which one might imagine the hum of bog flies was the murmuring of bees in a far-off garden. Nakis opened his eyes and inhaled a breath, holding it for a moment before releasing it. "Huh." He smiled widely, a flash of white in his dark face. "That is definitely not a children's song."

"No," Zohaqan agreed. "Far too sophisticated in imagery and vocabulary for a mortal youngling."

"Who is this Spring?" asked Nakis. "A djinn? He must have been very beautiful, to inspire such a poem."

Zohaqan laughed. "No, you mortal simpleton! Spring is a poetic name for the season of the Zephyr."

"Ah," Nakis said, chuckling. He rested his chin on his knees, arms wrapped around his bent legs. "That makes a lot more sense. I was picturing a magnificent warrior literally shooting arrows made of flowers from a bow made of bees."

"Are you not familiar with the concept of a metaphor?"

Nakis covered his face with a hand, though Zohaqan could still see his smile underneath. "Of course I know what a metaphor is! I just didn't realize how much of the poem was figurative. You said it was a 'song of the bee.'"

Zohaqan demurred, "I suppose it was not really about bees. It only mentioned them."

The man and the djinn laughed and conversed for some time, swapping songs and poems. When the shadows lengthened, Nakis stood and stretched his limbs. "I hate to cut this short, but I'll need to leave soon."

"Why now?" Zohaqan checked the sky. "Sunset is not for a while yet."

"I'm getting very hungry, and it's a long walk back to camp." Nakis's stomach growled to emphasize the point. "Also, it looks like it's going to rain."

Zohaqan waved a hand dismissively. "It will not rain until after sundown. I know the rains better than you."

"Yes, you do." Nakis smiled, but his eyes held regret. "I wish I could stay to talk to you longer, but I have kitchen duty tonight."

Zohaqan was intrigued. "Kitchen duty... Preparing food? Cooking?"

"Yes. It's boring and takes forever, but sometimes I get to taste dinner before it's ready." Nakis pulled his pack on his shoulders and sighed. "The gathering season is almost over. I won't be able to come out this way as often, but I'd like to visit you again."

The Phoenix rains would be soon. "I will not tarry much longer near this place. The storm winds sweep northward." Zohaqan paused. "If I left a note for you here," he asked Nakis, "would you be sure to find it?"

Nakis nodded. "I'll look for it. For now, duty calls." He bowed and turned to leave. Zohaqan watched the man duck under the vines and disappear from sight, bound to his duty that called him elsewhere. Returning to drift by the waterfall, Zohaqan gathered clouds to his side, darkening them as the sun sank.

"Kitchen duty..." A curse upon it. Why did Nakis have to go to a kitchen, instead of stay here as he wished? He had been hungry, and lacked the energy and equipment to feed himself; therefore he had to return to his corsair masters. Zohaqan grumbled.

Cooking should have been simple, if mortals could do it. Find animal and vegetable matter, remove the inedible bits, apply heat. What else? Salt, Nakis had said yesterday, and something acidic. Fuel for a mortal body... Zohaqan pulled a root from the edge of the pool, probing it for its contents. Much of its essence was water, of course, but the parts that were earth included some salts, some carbon. Nothing delicious, Zohaqan could tell. Djinn senses, attuned to the elements as they were, were different from those of mortals, but surely no mortal other than a dung beetle would want to eat this.

Frustrated, Zohaqan pulled water vapor from the air and condensed it, charging the columns of cloud with discontent. They rose and gathered, forming the beginnings of a thunderhead that caught the south wind, cold air clashing with warm air. Zohaqan focused his attention back to the plants with renewed determination. Choosing the ingredients needn't be so difficult. Here was one that would taste sour—nothing in its composition seemed harmful, he decided, making it a sound candidate for the acidic component. Salt was somewhat trickier to acquire. He was not naturally inclined to work with earth, but could find the elements easily enough with patience.

Where else could he find flavors that would be pleasing to mortals? He scanned the riverbank. A scent on the air... Elon lily, late in bloom. He bent to pluck it from the waters, crushing a petal to release the delicate perfume. Not suited for tasting, Zohaqan thought. Mortals sensed some elements as smell and others as taste, and a mixture that was pleasing to one sense could be repugnant to the other. He pressed the flower into powder, separating its scent into a liquid ball of fragrance that he poured into the hollow of a nearby stone. He would find a use for it later.

Some seeds of a fibrous plant provided oil that could hold the other flavors and diffuse them across a human tongue. Zohaqan added the oil to the mass of nutrients that he held in suspension before him. The final element was heat, applied over time. He considered how to perform this step. A direct application of lightning would be too hot, too fast. He set a current through the air to heat it, keeping it separated from the mixture, satisfied that the elements were combining into new bonds from the temperature and pressure of the air. Sweet, spicy, tangy, savory: a balance that a human might find enticing, with enough fuel to sate his hunger for at least a day.

Tired from his efforts, Zohaqan wrapped his completed cake in a broad, waxy leaf, adding a note burned into a second leaf, weighed down by a stone: _For Nakis_. Then he opened his arms to the wind and let his essence soar, carried northward by the storm clouds. The charge in the air energized him, restored his strength. By the next evening, he was content to descend back to earth with the warm rains.

He followed the rains back to the same spot where he had left the cake. To his delight, a new note had been left in its place: _Thank you, Zohaqan, my friend. I will return in two days, at noon._

He checked that the liquid perfume from the lily was still safe in its pot of stone. A gift that he could bestow another day. He curled to the ground, watching the stars wheel across the sky and anticipating the dawn of the next day, when he would see Nakis, his friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kālidāsa was a real Sanskrit poet and dramatist. The poem Zohaqan attributes to him is composer Gustav Holst's interpretation from his work H.112, _Two Eastern Pictures_.


	3. Elements

The strange cake that Zohaqan had made was so dense and rich that Nakis had only to consume part of it to completely fill his belly. He slipped into his bedroll that night with a blissful, satiated feeling in his stomach, not hungry at all for the first time in months. He woke before dawn on the next day, as was his custom, and prepared for the daily work with such cheerful vigor that the night watchman, Yusef, groaned at him as Nakis left the caves with a skip in his step. "What's got you so happy?" Nakis merely grinned at Yusef and made his way south in the predawn light, whistling.

With Zohaqan's miraculous food for his breakfast, Nakis had the energy to work almost twice as fast as usual. After his dawn prayers, the sun was still only halfway to noon when he had finished filling his pack. He nibbled at the remnants of Zohaqan's cake, marveling at how easy it went down despite its strange texture. It was as filling as hearty stew, yet light as broth, and solid, though it melted on the tongue. How had the djinn created such a thing? He hoped he would get to ask him. He didn't know whether Zohaqan would receive his message; perhaps the storm spirit had already moved to the north with the earlier rainclouds, and had intended the cake as a parting gift. Nakis didn't want Zohaqan to leave before he had a chance to return the favor.

He had spent the previous afternoon considering how to repay him. What could a mortal give to a djinn as a gift? According to the legends, djinn had a love of beauty: a taste for fine wines and spices, for exquisite works of art and craftsmanship. Nakis didn't have the resources to create anything particularly beautiful or useful. In the end, he had used earth magic to fashion a bell from an old ceramic vase, small enough to fit in his pocket. It rang with a clear, high note when struck with a pebble. Not as refined as something a djinn could make, but perhaps Zohaqan would find it amusing.

Making his way to the pool at the cliff, more waterlogged now but still recognizable in the landscape, he wondered if it was rude to show up early to a meeting with a djinn. He poked his head through the hanging vines, spotting Zohaqan floating beside the waterfall. "Ahai," he called to the djinn, and Zohaqan turned toward him, arms waving in welcome.

"Friend Nakis! It is not yet noon. You are early."

"Your food helped me work faster. I wanted to give you this in thanks." He held out the ceramic bell to the djinn, who leaned forward to examine it when Nakis bounced a pebble off its side, sounding the bell's note. Zohaqan took the gift in one hand, flicked his opposite fingers to send a reverberation through the bell, and clapped the other two hands in delight.

"How clever for a mortal! I see you shaped the stoneware with some skill, though it had already been fired in a different form. Hear how it sings."

Nakis smiled. "It wasn't too hard to do. But how did you make that food? It was amazing!" He patted his stomach. "I didn't know what it was, but it smelled so good I felt compelled to lick it... Imagine my surprise when I found it was entirely edible. Not only edible, but filling."

"I'm glad that it nourished you, friend." Zohaqan pointed out the plants and insects that he had used as ingredients. "It is little wonder that you are hungry, when you have such a dismal collection of materials from which to make a meal."

"Dragonfly? Eugh!" Nakis stuck out his tongue. "I tried eating one my first week in exile, when I was starving. It tasted disgusting. But I guess it sustained me, when I could keep it down. How did you know which things were edible?"

"In the composition of earth and water," said Zohaqan. "As a whole, the dragonfly is not pleasant to taste, but it contains material that would nourish a body such as yours. I had to remove some material and add others to make the combination pleasing to the senses."

"That sounds hideously complicated."

Zohaqan seemed pleased with himself. "When you know which essences of earth and water to separate from the whole, and which to discard, it's simple—though it requires some stamina to keep all the parts held in mind."

"Held in mind?" Nakis repeated, bemused. "What do you mean?"

Zohaqan waved a hand at his own form. "I am, at the heart of my being, a gathering of essence, which I keep in a holding pattern to form the body that you perceive." He held out three of his hands, still holding Nakis's bell in the fourth, and shifted each one to a different state of water: ice, liquid, vapor. "Generally I have the strength to manipulate only a single element at a time while I keep a material form."

Nakis looked at him in surprise. "How do you pay attention to all of that at once?"

"It wouldn't be possible for a mortal to do so," Zohaqan said, "but to a djinn, manipulating essence is as trivial as breathing is to you."

"Incredible." Nakis shook his head. "I think I understand only some of what you mean by 'essence.' When I focus my will to attune to earth," he continued, demonstrating by channeling energy around his closed fist, "am I sensing the earth's essence?"

"Yes, to some extent," Zohaqan answered. "As an elementalist, your connection to the essence is tenuous, such that you can channel it only through some object or weapon." Zohaqan pointed at Nakis's fist. "For you, essence is a tool. For djinn, it is our being. Even the most talented of mortal mages cannot manipulate it in the same way that djinn can."

Nakis had a sobering thought. "If elemental magic is manipulating essence," he said doubtfully, "does that mean that you could control the essence of elements in my body?"

"I sense the earth, air, and water within your body, but cannot manipulate it," Zohaqan assured him. "It's not possible to manipulate another being's essence. I can exert force upon it," he added, pushing a gust of chilled air to Nakis's chest that lifted him slightly from the ground and set him down again, "but cannot hold it in mind, as I can with the essences of things that are not alive, or the essence of my own form." Zohaqan folded his arms, still cradling the bell in one palm. "I don't need to manipulate your essence directly to cause you harm," he reminded Nakis. "Mortal bodies are fragile."

"So you can't manipulate me, but you can manipulate this rock and throw it at my head?" Nakis tossed a conjured stone from hand to hand, and Zohaqan snatched it away with a blast of wind, making Nakis laugh. "Would you tell me more of elemental magic? I think there's a lot I could learn from you."

Zohaqan drew his form up, one hand under his chin in a gesture that Nakis found surprisingly human. His eyes shone with mirth. "Only if you make a fair exchange. Sing more of your mortal songs for me, and I will tell you of elemental magic."

"And your cooking?" Nakis grinned. "What would I have to exchange for more of that?"

"That, I'll give freely," replied Zohaqan. "I'm determined to refine the recipe, and you will tell me whether you are pleased with the result."

"Why did you make food for me?" Nakis looked at his pack full of bitter roots and thought of the corsairs who would be dining on poorer fare tonight. "Lots of other creatures around here are hungry." The foraging activity of the corsairs must have decimated the local beetle population, not to mention the eels that predated on them; Nakis himself could have made a good meal for an ice hydra or two. The struggle for survival was nothing personal, and Nakis was glad to have benefited from the djinn's generosity.

"No others share their songs with me, nor sing so sweetly," Zohaqan said. "It's for my own sake that I provided you with sustenance." His eyes pulled Nakis's gaze. "I would have you stay, that I might listen to your speech and your laugh, for they please me."

The djinn had such a strange way of speaking sometimes. Nakis rubbed the back of his neck. "You can't stay either, though, can you? I thought you had to go north, with the rains."

"Yes." Zohaqan's form wavered at the edges. "By sunset, it will be time for me to move on." The sky rumbled with distant thunder.

"Oh." Nakis swallowed. "Does that mean I won't see you again?"

Zohaqan looked out at the horizon. "Not necessarily. As the cloud returns the rain to the earth and as the mist rises from the waters, so I always return to the same place eventually."

"Would you return here? To this cliff?"

Zohaqan floated close beside him, resting a hand on Nakis's shoulder in what seemed a human gesture of comfort, though the djinn's grip was cool and insubstantial, almost weightless. "When the wind changes, look for me where the stormwaters flow to the northern caves. Then we'll exchange songs once more." Zohaqan held out Nakis's bell to him. "Will you keep this safe for me in the meantime?"

Nakis nodded. "Of course, friend." He palmed it, turning it in his hand with a current of earth magic. "Let's use the time we have left in the day to enjoy ourselves, shall we? I know a song about bells. ' _If I had a bell, I'd ring it in the mo-or-ning_...'"

Zohaqan pushed a puff of air against the side of Nakis's head in disapproval. "That sounds terrible! You'll need to think of a much better song to teach me before I'll tell you anything you want to know."

"See, I don't always sing sweetly," Nakis teased, continuing in a blaring crescendo and striking the bell out of time. "' _I'd ring out da-anger! I'd ring out a wa-arning! I'd ring out lo-o-ve between my brothers and my sisters_...'"

"Stop! Give it back!" Zohaqan chased him around the pool, laughing.

They spent the rest of the day in mock argument over Nakis's ill-treatment of the instrument, in between bouts of elemental combat, punctuated with Nakis's mangling of as many bell-related songs as he could recall. The afternoon passed far too quickly for his liking. That night, Nakis dreamed of enigmatic blue eyes, shining as stars between dark stormclouds, and thunder reminiscent of echoing laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lines Nakis sings are from "The Hammer Song" by Pete Seeger and Lee Hays, first recorded in 1950 as a single by The Weavers.


	4. Exchange

In the season that followed, they exchanged many songs, as well as gifts. Zohaqan found that Nakis's capacity for earth and fire magic gave him somewhat of a knack for pottery and clay-shaping, though his artistic talent left much to be desired. He said as much in a note, which he carved with lightning onto the wall of the cave where they had last practiced sparring.

 _Nakis—_  
_What is the bizarre object you left in the eastern grotto at the new moon? I'm convinced it must be some grisly idol of an eel. I thought you were a worshiper of the ascended human Kormir, not an adherent of krait sacrificial practices._  
_Let's meet at the southern cliff by the waterfall, when the hail passes. I'll wait for you._

Though neither had mentioned Nakis's latest venture into clay sculpture as they had talked and laughed together after the first hail of the season, he found Nakis's reply scorched onto a standing rock soon after.

 _Dear Zohaqan,_  
_It was supposed to be a soup ladle. I think you were holding it the wrong way up._  
_Next time that we meet, could you show me how you fused the sand and grass ashes into molten glass the other day? I wanted to try making a bottle for your next culinary experiment._  
_I'll look for you after sunrise in three days, at the stone circle._

Zohaqan thought of the lily perfume that still steeped within a hollow rock at the cliff waterfall. He returned there to fetch it, siphoning the liquid with care to hold in place before himself as he made his way north to the place of their arranged meeting. It was not yet dawn. Nakis would come soon, to judge the result of this "culinary experiment." Zohaqan hoped his friend would be pleased with the gift.

The ball of liquid scent that he had carried here was conspicuous as long as he held it; he would have to find some vessel to keep it in. The circle of stones that he and Nakis had erected to mark a meeting place was in a sheltered cave, empty of plant and animal life, but Zohaqan found a pit in the cavern wall near the gap where the rock ceiling opened to the sky. He placed the lily essence inside it.

Nakis arrived when the cave was still in semidarkness, holding a flame in his hand to see by. "Zohaqan?"

"I am here." Zohaqan floated back down to the cave floor, lighting a firefly-like glow in the fungi at Nakis's feet and waiting to see if the man would notice. Nakis smiled in greeting, finding the radiance of Zohaqan's eyes in the half-light, and extinguished the flame in his hand. "How did you blunder your way here in the dark with your crude mortal senses?" Zohaqan mocked, though he knew his friend would understand the fondness in his teasing. "If we were playing hide-and-seek, you'd make a poor showing indeed."

"Just give me a minute for my eyes to adjust," Nakis pleaded, laughing. "I can see by starlight, and with earth sensing. You cheat by moving without touching the ground." He looked down. "It looks as though you've lighted my path for me, friend. How'd you accomplish that?"

Zohaqan lifted a cluster of the glowing fungus. "See how I've made a fire without flame, as the fireflies do?" he said, regarding his work with self-satisfaction. "The glow is mild enough not to overwhelm your night vision, I think." He touched it to each rock in their circle, smearing luminescent symbols on the stones.

"Very clever," Nakis said in admiration. Zohaqan felt a spark of pride at his friend's praise. "Here, let me finish the sentence for you. 'ZOHAQAN... IS... M-A-G-'—"

"Magical? What a shrewd observation."

"Let me finish, wise guy. M-A-G-N—"

"Magnanimous? Magnetic? Magniloquent?" Zohaqan interrupted.

"—I-F-I-C-E-N-T," Nakis finished, ending the last glyph with a flourish. "You're all those other things, too... I think. What does magniloquent mean?"

"Prone to using grandiose language," he clarified.

"Yes, you're definitely that. You're wordier than a dictionary."

"Wordier than a condemned thief's courtroom defense," agreed Zohaqan.

"Wordier than a clanmarshal's audience room at harvest time."

"Wordier than a prince's love poems to his entire harem."

"Wordier than a human who can't think of additional wordy comparisons," Nakis said, conceding defeat with a grin. Zohaqan was distracted a moment by the dimple at the corner of his friend's mouth, which only appeared in some of Nakis's smiles and not others. More scrutiny was necessary to determine a pattern. "Here, I've got some more swamp weeds that we can burn to ash. Would they work for glassmaking?"

Zohaqan inspected the clump of grass. "Yes, they'll do. We'll also need lime from those stones, and quartz from the silt." Nakis furrowed his brow in concentration, focusing earth energy to gather the sand and rocks that the process would require. Zohaqan guided his friend's hands with two of his own. "Focus your fire attunement to melt them. If hot enough, the essences will separate naturally and spare you the effort of having to pull them apart." Nakis nodded and spent some minutes absorbing himself in the task.

Sweat glistened at Nakis's hairline. Zohaqan raised another of his hands to waft cooled air toward him, brushing over Nakis's ears and cheeks, where his skin blushed darker than normal. Temperature regulation seemed an ever-present difficulty for a mortal body. "Breathe deeply. You are too hot," Zohaqan admonished him. "Do you require more water to drink?"

"I—" Nakis sucked in a breath. His pulse was quick and steady at his throat, his eyes flicking away from Zohaqan's gaze. "I'm fine. Does this look right?"

"Yes, you've done beautifully." Zohaqan lifted Nakis's hands between them. "Now attune to air. Channel its essence to make a hollow in the glass."

Human and djinn worked together to shape the melted mass of earth essences. The concave lump began to take form as the air inside swelled in time with Nakis's breathing. The resulting bulb, though lopsided, could serve as a container once it was hardened and cooled. "How do I cool it without breaking it?" Nakis asked.

"Slowly," Zohaqan instructed, "but not too slowly—or it will collapse on itself."

"Thanks, that's so helpful," said Nakis, his dimple making another appearance. "How about you do it, and I'll watch?" He transferred the suspended weight of the molten globe to Zohaqan, who channeled heat away from it and set it to rest on the ground, a completed vessel. When he looked up, Nakis was staring at him, not at the glass bottle. "Maybe someday I'll understand that trick," he said, approaching Zohaqan. He lifted his hand as though to touch the side of the djinn's face, but laid it on Zohaqan's shoulder instead. "You do it so much better."

Zohaqan shifted forward, drawn toward Nakis's smile. "Of course I do it better. I'm a djinn."

A line appeared between Nakis's eyebrows. "Yes, you're a djinn." He looked into Zohaqan's eyes, searching for something. "I've been wondering... How are djinn made?"

Zohaqan thought how to answer the question. "How is a man made?" he asked in response. Nakis's eyes widened, then crinkled in a smile.

"Well, when a man and woman lie together—"

Zohaqan batted Nakis on the arm with one of his own. "That's not what I mean. I'm quite familiar with the complexities of mortal lovemaking." He reworded the question. "How is a man's soul bound to his body? How is a soul made?"

Nakis paused in his perusal of Zohaqan's face. "It's a mystery. Perhaps only the gods know."

"Or not even they." Zohaqan wondered what Nakis saw when he looked at Zohaqan's material form. "Djinn, like man and other sapient mortals, have souls that are bound up in elements. No one knows why or how the djinn came to be. We are as old as the earth and sky, and as young as civilization." Zohaqan laid one hand on Nakis's shoulder and two around his waist. "We have hearts, that we may hear music and see beauty," he went on, placing his fourth palm across Nakis's chest, "and that we may feel."

"What do you feel?" Nakis's eyes were unreadable, his pulse beating beneath Zohaqan's fingers. A mystery, that a soul could be bound up in such a tangle of different essences.

"Happiness and joy, weariness and sorrow," Zohaqan answered Nakis's question. "Pleasure, frustration, anger. Curiosity. Desire." The silence between them was full of expectation, like the potential energy in storm clouds, poised to strike the earth as lightning.

"And love? Do djinn feel love?" Nakis's breathing halted as soon as he voiced the question, as though he feared how Zohaqan would answer it.

Zohaqan considered the man before him at arm's length. "The emotion that mortals call love is complex, because you feel your emotions within your body. Your appetites are born of different needs—for nourishment, for propagation of your race, for survival. You experience touch," he continued, lifting his hand from Nakis's shoulder to stroke the curve of his ear, "in terms of your emotions."

Nakis swallowed, flattening his hands against Zohaqan's form. "Can you feel when I touch you?"

"Not in the same way that you do," Zohaqan said, resting his forehead against Nakis's to see his eyes reflected in his friend's. "I have neither nerves nor blood to arouse, nor do I have lips to kiss." He drew Nakis into an embrace, relishing the man's gasp for breath and the heat of his skin. "Yet I can kiss you." He brushed against Nakis's lips with magic molded to fit their shape, caressing without demanding. "Is that what you desire?"

"Oh," Nakis choked out, his eyelids shutting off Zohaqan's reflected view of the djinn's own glowing eyes. He could hear Nakis's blood singing in its course through the man's body. "Yes," Nakis stuttered into wordlessness.

"If my shape does not please you," Zohaqan said when they had been occupied in this manner for some time, "I may change it to anything you desire." He solidified his body into long legs and broad curves, assuming the countenance of a noblewoman of the Great Dynasty who had been famed for her beauty.

"What?" Nakis goggled, seeming somewhat befuddled by the change. His hands gripped Zohaqan's hips, his eyes raking up and down the djinn's form, clearly appreciating what they saw. "You... oh, gods—"

"Or would you prefer me like this?" Zohaqan shifted his torso taller, his shoulders thicker, changing his face to that of a Kournan swordsman, roughened with stubble and battle scars. "What do you want, friend Nakis? Your wish is my command." He winked one eye and arranged the soldier's lips in a flirtatious smile.

Nakis was nearly overcome, crushing his body against Zohaqan's from chest to toe. The djinn caught him when Nakis's knees gave out. Nakis tangled his fingers through the hair of Zohaqan's borrowed form, pressed kisses to Zohaqan's cheek, his throat, his chest, his jaw, his lips. "Kormir help me, I want you," he whispered, his voice hoarse, "just you—Zohaqan, I love you—"

"Truly?" Zohaqan reassumed his customary form, arms wrapping around Nakis's body, holding him close. He wove his fingers through the man's hair and reached another hand lower, while settling the two of them to rest on a cushion of air. Nakis made incoherent noises that seemed to indicate his agreement and no small amount of enthusiasm. If Zohaqan didn't know better, he might have worried that Nakis was in pain, so labored was his breathing and so contorted were his features, shocking and exquisite in their expression. When Nakis cried out, Zohaqan stilled his movements, unsure whether he had hurt him.

"Don't stop," Nakis commanded, panting for breath, tendons standing out in his neck. "Touch me, again—oh gods, just like that. Yes— _yes_..."

They held each other's gaze as Zohaqan drank in the sight of Nakis, the taste and sound and essence of him. This man restored Zohaqan more than rain, beguiled him more than wine, fulfilled him more than thunder. His heart sensed all of Nakis, almost more than Zohaqan could bear.

"I love you," he told Nakis, voice rumbling deep through the cavern. "I love—" 

Nakis's moans and curses echoed off the cave walls, rising to the sky. They spoke no more to each other for a while, not with words. When Nakis drifted into slumber, Zohaqan curled around him, listening in wonder to the man's heartbeat.

Nakis stirred from his doze when the sun had passed its peak. He smiled and hummed as he nuzzled into Zohaqan's chest. "Do we have time for more of this?" he mumbled, words slurred in sleep. "I don't want to wake from this dream."

Zohaqan stroked Nakis's hair, loath to release him. "No," he said quietly. "It is time for you to go back, to return in time for sunset."

"Don't tell me that," Nakis sighed. "Tell me you love me."

"I love you," Zohaqan murmured, tracing a line over his brow. "My Nakis." He would never tire of calling him so, now that he knew it to be true, that they belonged to one another. He had lived uncounted millennia before learning this truth; why, then, was it so arduous to contemplate being parted from Nakis merely until the next dawn? "You'll come tomorrow?"

Nakis smirked, raising his eyebrows. "Oh, I'm sure I will." Zohaqan blew an amused huff at the fringe of his hair. "Was it," Nakis asked, faltering, "was it—pleasurable—for you?" His blood warmed his cheeks. "There's so much of you that I don't understand—"

"Believe me when I say," Zohaqan cut off his words with a lingering kiss to his mouth, "you please me greatly. Exceedingly." He trailed his fingers down Nakis's back, savoring how it made the man shiver and lean into the touch. "You are entirely delicious."

"Glad to hear it," Nakis said, his voice faint. "I really need to go soon, don't I? No time for—ah," he gasped, "that's unfair, how you're doing that, taking me to pieces and you're still just looking at me with those _eyes_ —"

"Tomorrow," Zohaqan spoke low in his ear, "I'll take human form when I make love to you, and you'll see exactly how much pleasure I take in you." Nakis groaned, and Zohaqan withdrew his hands with reluctance. "But for now, you must go."

While Nakis stretched, donned his clothing, and shouldered his pack, Zohaqan watched him, admiring the muscles that flexed and twisted in his movements, for a djinn's heart is made to see beauty. He remembered his gift still ungiven: the lily perfume in its hiding place. Zohaqan took up the liquid from where he had left it, funneled it all into the glass bottle that he and Nakis had made, then fashioned a stopper of stone to hold its aroma inside. "For you," he said, touching a drop of fragrance to the pulse that beat just below Nakis's palm. "To carry sweetness with you, when I am not nearby."

Nakis lifted his wrist to smell, smiling in pleasure as he inhaled the scent. "Mmm. Thank you, my love." He took one of Zohaqan's hands and squeezed it before departing, and the djinn's heart brimmed with delight, for it was made to feel. 

The wind outside the caves picked up, sighing. Rain flooded the caverns and poured over the limestone rocks. Zohaqan whispered his lover's name to the waters and they echoed it back to him, soothing as a song, for a djinn's heart is made to hear music.


	5. Bound

At supper that evening, Nakis couldn't keep the grin off his face. He attracted suspicious looks and knowing sneers from those he passed on his way through the cave that served as the corsairs' mess hall, but found he was too overjoyed to care. Zeinab, an eel wrangler and one of his usual eating companions—though far from what Nakis would call a friend—elbowed him when he crouched by the campfire. Her demeanor radiated smugness. "Who is it?" she crooned.

Nakis feigned ignorance as he ladled stew into his bowl. "What are you talking about?"

She rolled her eyes. "Don't be coy. You're either real excited about what we've got for dinner here—" she eyeballed the watery stew in her lap with a sniff of distaste— "or you got yourself some action this afternoon." She twirled a finger in front of his face. "So, out with it. Who's got you all moony-eyed and lookin' like you've been licked by an iboga sprout?"

He raised the stew to his lips, sipping it with what he hoped was a dignified air. "None of your business."

"Ooh, touchy," cackled Matiya, another of the regulars that congregated around this campfire at mealtimes. She paused in picking her teeth with a choya spine to leer at Nakis. "Bet it's someone on night shift. Yusef told me—oh look, here's the merry man himself. Yusef, didn't you say you've seen Nakis here looking awful pleased about something when he went out in the middle of the night a while back?"

"Nakis," a gruff voice sounded from above his head. "Cap'n wants to see you."

That wasn't good news. Nakis put down his dinner bowl, wiping his hand across his mouth, and turned his head to see who was addressing him. Yusef loomed over him with a glowering expression. "Right now?" Nakis asked him, already knowing the answer.

The guard's scowl didn't budge. "Right now." Yusef's mood wouldn't improve until he sat down and had his evening coffee. He took Nakis's place at the campfire and reached for the tin pot. "Wouldn't keep him waiting if I were you."

Captain Buna was someone whose path Nakis would prefer never to cross again, but disobeying an order from the boss wouldn't get him anywhere but in trouble. He abandoned the rest of his meal and left the three corsairs to their gossip.

Buna and his higher-ranked cronies had separate quarters at the back of the main cavern, where they directed everything that went on in the Snakebites' camp. Nakis hadn't been there since his capture over a year ago, when Buna had offered him a choice: work for the collective benefit of his crew, or die. Of the group of six from Nakis's village that the Mordant Crescent soldiers had escorted and dumped north of the wall that season, Nakis had been the only one still on his feet after thirty days of misery and squalor. When he had seen the torches of the corsair raiders in the distance, he'd thought them a hallucination: his fellow exiles had fallen ill some days previously with high fever and vomiting, and surely he would be next. It had been laughable to think there could be other people out here in this endless, stinking wasteland—that there was any hope of rescue. That Kormir might have heard and answered his prayers.

The raiders, hard-faced men and women who had jeered and laughed at his fumbling attempt to hold them off, had taken Nakis back to their camp before he could see what had happened to the others. He was glad now that he hadn't borne witness to whatever they'd done with the sick and dying. The corsairs had bound Nakis's hands and hobbled his feet, but he'd been too exhausted to even think of attempting escape. In a daze, he hadn't struggled when they had forced him to his knees before their leader. Nakis had mustered the last of his strength to lift his head and look the corsair captain in the eye, then ask in a croak, "Why haven't you killed me?"

Buna had stared Nakis down, his graying hair and weathered face a testament to how long he had survived in the dangerous business of being an outlaw. "That would be a needless waste of life," the captain had said. Then he had drawn his sword, pointed it a fingersbreadth from Nakis's throat. "I think you have some fight left in you, boy. You still want to survive." Nakis had said nothing, his jaw set. "We are corsairs, not savages. As long as you can prove your usefulness," the captain had gone on, the unspoken _or else_ plain in the steel of his blade and in his eyes, "you may live under our protection."

It wasn't a bad deal, all told. Nakis couldn't complain, when he compared his life here to the death that lay in wait beyond the corsairs' dominion. Buna managed the Snakebites with unquestioned authority, yet the captain wouldn't have been able to keep a crew of thieves and murderers in line if he hadn't been, in his own way, a fair and reasoned leader. Nakis had a grudging respect for the man, but didn't trust him, and certainly wouldn't miss him if Nakis had ever had the guts and werewithal to leave. Even so, Nakis had labored each day for Buna's crew without resentment. On the contrary, the hours of solitary foraging, repairing, hunting, and building he had spent since throwing his lot in with the Snakebites were the closest thing to freedom that Nakis had ever experienced, and he was not ungrateful for them. For once in his life, he'd had time of his own: time to be alone with his thoughts, to pray, to sing songs of home. He'd even had time to share—with a beloved, unexpected companion.

Nakis smiled, following well-worn paths of reverie that, over this past season, had done much to ease the drudgery of his day-to-day existence. The hours of hard labor hadn't felt any shorter than before he and Zohaqan had met, but they'd become softer, tinged with the rosiness of daydreams. At first, Nakis had been somewhat abashed to find himself imagining what it would be like to fall asleep nestled in Zohaqan's arms. Later, he'd begun to fantasize about Zohaqan reciting ancient erotic poetry in that mellifluous voice of his, lacing every syllable with passion and intent. Nakis had often wondered, with a fervor that made him blush, what Zohaqan might taste like: cold and hard as marble, or soft and yielding as melting ice. More than once, alone in the darkness, when his longing had peaked to urgency, Nakis had touched himself to a thrilling rush of images—mouths and bodies intertwined, Zohaqan's hands stroking over and around and under and inside, the djinn's blue eyes ablaze with mischief. The crushing weight of Nakis's desire had nearly driven him to distraction when they were together, when he'd tried to hide how it affected him. How foolish, in hindsight, to believe that Zohaqan couldn't possibly have felt the same way. He'd surely have teased Nakis for his mortal dim-wittedness, had he known.

The consummation of many of Nakis's fantasies earlier that day had not curbed their effect on him in the slightest. Nakis touched his fingers to his lips, closing his eyes and breathing in the lingering scent of Elon lily. Its perfume sharpened the lines of his newly formed memories into permanent etchings. With a sigh, Nakis reined in his thoughts before he opened the door to Captain Buna's office and strode toward the desk to present himself. "I was told you wanted to see me," he announced, dispensing with formalities.

Buna looked up from his accounting books. His expression revealed nothing of the reason for his summons, his gaze commanding and unyielding as it had been at their last meeting. He tilted his head to the stool in front of his desk, indicating for Nakis to take a seat. Nakis did so and waited.

"According to rumor," the captain began, when the silence had stretched long enough to make Nakis start to fidget on his perch, "you've been... seeing someone. Having trysts. It's no concern of mine what you do in your private time," he added, holding up a hand to stem Nakis's protest, "or with whom you choose to share it." He stood, circling around his desk to Nakis's side, narrowing his eyes. "What concerns me is that whoever this person is, it's someone living outside of this camp."

Nakis took a breath through his nose, suppressing the unease that squirmed in his gut. Buna wouldn't have demanded to talk to him unless he'd had some message to convey. If there were hard evidence of Nakis having broken any rules, he'd be on the receiving end of a lash right now, not having a private conversation in the captain's office. He kept his face blank, saying nothing.

"Consider this a reminder of our law, and a warning," Buna continued. "It's forbidden to provide help or shelter to anyone who does not take responsibility for the survival of the crew." He took a step forward, jabbing a finger just short of Nakis's chest. "Hoarding will not be tolerated. The punishment for such a crime, as you well know, is one lash per measure of food shorted or hoarded." He leveled his gaze at Nakis, clearly expecting him to say something in his own defense. Nakis bristled.

"I've never been short of my quota," he bit out, "and I haven't hoarded any food or supplies, as you well know... sir." He glared at Buna in defiance, though his voice shook. "If you have evidence that I've cheated your crew in any way, I'll take my due punishment, but you know that I'm telling the truth." He nodded to the papers on the desk. "There isn't anything unaccounted for, nothing I could have given to an outsider."

"It's true," Buna said, his soft tone belying danger, "you've never come up short." He loomed over Nakis, muscles bunching in his arms as he folded them across his chest. "There are no missing supplies. You might tell me I'd do well to ignore hearsay and rumors." He reached a hand into his pocket, and Nakis tensed, wondering if he was about to pull out a pistol or a knife. "I don't have evidence that you've done anything wrong at all... Except for this." His hand emerged holding up a strip of cloth that Nakis recognized, as his own handwriting was all over it.

Nakis squeezed his eyes shut as though to hide the damning note from sight, but he knew every word it said. He'd tied the message to a vine by the eel-hunting grounds more than a month ago; one of the camp hunters, instead of the intended recipient, must have found it and brought it to Buna's attention.

 _Dear Zohaqan,_  
_Your cooking continues to amaze me. How do you make such delicious flavors come out of such mundane ingredients? What we have back at camp is unappetizing slop in comparison. You're a marvel._  
_I've got a new sculpture to show you. Can you meet me at sunrise after the half moon?_  
_—Nakis_

"The way I see it, if this Zohaqan isn't making off with Snakebite supplies..." Buna forced Nakis's head upward with a hand cupping his chin. "...Then he's in possession of some mighty remarkable skills, hmm?"

Nakis opened his eyes in outrage. "He hasn't been stealing anything!"

Buna snarled, "I know he's a djinn. Which means that _you_ have been holding out on us, boy."

Nakis swallowed the bile in his throat. "I haven't been holding out on you—"

"Having a djinn at your beck and call," Buna spoke over him, "is what I would call an asset. And all of your assets, as you know," he finished on a hiss, "are forfeit to this crew."

"Zohaqan isn't at my _beck and call_ ," Nakis spat. "He's a being with free will. He took a liking to me, that's all—he's my friend—"

"Which means you have power over him," the captain concluded, nodding in satisfaction. "Power that, by rights, belongs to me." Buna thrust an object into Nakis's lap. Startled, Nakis looked down to find himself holding a small vase. "Free will is an illusion," Buna said, pacing back behind his desk. "Djinn, like men, can always be bound." He resumed his seat and took up his ledger again without looking at Nakis. "You may go."

Nakis gripped the vase, breathing hard to quell his nausea. Buna continued reading his records as though he had never spoken. On trembling legs, Nakis left the room, taking the vase with him.

* * *

"He wants me to trap you," Nakis explained to Zohaqan in a monotone the next morning. As soon as Nakis had walked into their grotto, the djinn had flown to him with arms outstretched to embrace him, but Nakis had stepped back, placing the vase on the ground between them like a barrier.

Ignoring the vase, Zohaqan cajoled him. "Who? What do you mean?" He flitted back and forth in agitation. "I've never seen you upset like this. What's the matter? Speak to me, my Nakis."

Nakis sat in a heap, staring at the hated object rather than looking his friend in the eyes. "The Snakebite captain... my boss. He knows about us."

Zohaqan reached a hand across to Nakis's shoulder. Nakis shied from the djinn's touch, though he wanted more than anything to throw himself into his arms. "Does it shame you," Zohaqan asked with uncharacteristic hesitation, "that your master knows of our... friendship?"

"No, of course not," Nakis answered. "I'm not ashamed to be in love with you." He scrubbed at his eyes, wrestling with the words. "My boss wants me," he said, sick with betrayal, "to trap you. In that vase. To make you serve him too." 

There was a pause. "I doubt you'd have the strength to do such a thing," Zohaqan said, seeming bemused rather than alarmed. "Your master thinks you can best me in combat? He must have a very low opinion indeed of my abilities and rank—"

"Zohaqan!" Nakis cried. "Don't you get it? He thinks I could convince you to bind yourself in there, because—because you like me. That you'd do it to save me from punishment."

The djinn bent down to inspect the mouth of the vase. "Well, it doesn't look very comfortable, but I suppose I could."

"What?" Nakis gawked at him. "This isn't funny. I can't believe you'd make a joke about something like—"

"I make no jest," Zohaqan interrupted, laying a finger across Nakis's open lips, tipping his jaw closed with another hand, nudging Nakis's face upward to meet his gaze. "Your master is correct. Because I love you, I'd do anything to save you from harm." His eyes flared. "Is that so difficult for your mortal mind to comprehend?"

"No," breathed Nakis, swaying toward Zohaqan, gritting his teeth against the impulse to fall into his arms and cling to him. He stood up, pacing, fighting the swooping dread in his stomach. "He isn't your master. He isn't _my_ master. We don't have to do what he says."

Zohaqan caught Nakis's shoulder before he could turn away again. "What will happen if you don't bring that vase back to your... captain? What will he do to you?"

"He'll give me a few days... Then he'll have me whipped, I guess." One lash for each measure of shorted food. How many dozens of measures of food could Zohaqan produce with his power? "Probably enough lashes to kill me outright, since he thinks I've been hoarding you from the rest of the camp." Nakis shuddered. "Then he would lead a raiding party to find you, and bind you in a vessel, and force you to work."

"And if you bring the vase back with me inside it?" Zohaqan prompted.

Nakis clutched his arms around himself. "Then he wouldn't punish me." He added, frowning at the djinn, "But you'd still be forced to work. You'd be his thrall."

"Clearly, then," said Zohaqan, "that is the better outcome of the two." Nakis shook his head in refusal, scowling. "What would be so terrible about serving this man?" Zohaqan asked, his matter-of-fact tone both reasonable and irritating. "You already serve him. If I joined you in servitude, we'd be together."

"But..." Nakis grimaced. Buna was a practical man; he knew that djinn didn't need to eat or sleep. "He'd make you work as hard as you could, for as long as you could, to offload work from everyone else." Nakis huffed out a humorless laugh. "The only reason he doesn't work all of us that hard is because we'd die; you wouldn't. I can't let them do that to you," he pleaded.

"Ah..." Zohaqan had no other response. Nakis hoped that now he'd understand the reason for the depth of Nakis's distress. Nevertheless, there was a solution. There had to be.

"What if," Nakis suggested, "I didn't go back, and they never found us?"

Zohaqan pulled back in alarm. "You couldn't survive alone in the desert!" he exclaimed, voice rumbling with dismay. "These corsairs provide you with food, shelter, companionship. You said yourself that you would die without them."

"I wouldn't be alone, would I? I'd have you!" Nakis threw up his hands, exasperated. "You've already provided me with all of those things—more and better than they ever could." Months ago, he would have died without Buna's protection. Now, he would rather die than see the corsairs lock the Spirit of the Storm in a cage to do their bidding.

The djinn's arms sagged at his sides. "You are mortal. All mortals need the company of their own kind to survive." Zohaqan regarded the vase on the ground. "I could bind myself to that, for you to carry far from these waters, but where would you go? I can't allow you to endanger yourself," he insisted. "You're too fragile—"

"I am not fragile," Nakis retorted, stung. "Do you think so poorly of me? I've survived until now, and I'll continue to survive, whether you help me or not." He sniffed.

"I think highly of you, my Nakis." Zohaqan's head bowed. "I love you... So much, that I fear I might break you." The djinn's form fluttered at the edges. "I meant no insult, beloved. I speak the truth; you are precious to me, and I fear for you. How can I trust myself to be your only protector? Why shouldn't I bind myself to serve one who already ensures your prosperity, so that you may live as you did before?"

"Because you," Nakis burst out, "don't belong to anyone. And I don't belong to him!" He tapped into his earth-sense, searching. "I belong to you. Only to you."

"You say your master will not punish you, if I agree to be bound," said Zohaqan. "So I'll agree to it." To Nakis's horror, the lower half of the djinn's body was spooling into the vase like so much gossamer thread, pulling Zohaqan's form downward and inward.

"No!" Nakis split his focus in two, attuning to earth and fire at the same time. Zohaqan stopped siphoning his form into the vase, stunned, his gaze flicking between Nakis's eyes and hands.

The djinn watched, astonished, as Nakis blasted conjured rocks with magical fire and force, condensing them into magma between his palms. Then, releasing the magic with a jolt, Nakis sent the heat spiraling away as lightning that struck the cave ceiling, leaving shining scars in the stone. He parted his shaking hands. In them lay an artificial diamond, flawless and gleaming.

Nakis dropped to one knee, holding it out as an offering to his beloved. "With this token, I purchase myself for you. With the blessing of Kormir, in the name of all Six Gods, I bind myself to you." He intoned the secret words of handfasting with reverence. "I name myself your protector and comforter. I swear that I will be yours only, forever."

"Mine..." Zohaqan whispered in awe. "My Nakis—"

"Yes," Nakis said. He took a breath and exhaled in a quaking laugh. "So you see, I can't serve another master. Only you." He rose to his feet, conjured more earth to envelop the jewel in a band of stone, and slipped it onto the forefinger of Zohaqan's upper right hand. "Take until sundown to think about it. If you accept me as your own, then you'll know I'm right—we can't stay here." He backed away, blinking back tears. "If you give yourself over to them, or choose to leave without me, I'll take that as your refusal. Otherwise..." He turned to leave. "I'll await your reply. Leave a note for me at the fire-pit outside of camp." He sprinted away from the cave without looking back, his heart pounding.

He had at least a few days' grace before Buna would exact his punishment, as long as he continued to work as before. If Zohaqan turned himself in— Nakis clenched his jaw as he headed back to camp for work. If Zohaqan didn't realize that Nakis valued Zohaqan's freedom more than his own life, then perhaps he hadn't really loved him after all. Nakis threw himself into the weeding, digging, and repairs around camp as the corsairs prepared for the Scion harvest. His muscles burned with exertion, echoing the turmoil of his mind and doing nothing to ease it.

After supper, his heart in his throat, Nakis sneaked outside the camp to check the abandoned fire-pit that he and Zohaqan had used in the past to leave notes for one another. He could have wept in relief when he saw a flat, perfectly rectangular yellow stone among the others, inscribed with Zohaqan's answer to his proposal:

_My darling Nakis, my tender Nakis, my clever Nakis...you're right. Let's go. We'll flee tomorrow._


	6. Fight or Flight

It was still dark, and the air held a chill that heralded the change of seasons. Dew condensed on the river grasses and bent their blades down into the waters. West of the corsairs' caves, near the pit of stones where he had left his message, Zohaqan waited for Nakis to appear. He breathed a frost onto the ground in his impatience, worrying Nakis's promise-ring between his fingers.

This ring, with which his love had purchased himself for Zohaqan, weighed so little on his hand. Yet in all his days he had never beheld such a priceless treasure: not in the buried hoard of the Primeval Kings, nor in the jeweled sky-palaces of the ancient runeforgers; not even in the seas of riches hidden in Ahdashim, the city of his own people. Like all djinn, he would guard his prize jealously now that it was his. Even if Nakis thought to reclaim the ring from him—were he to decide to spurn him one day—Zohaqan would never relinquish it. The hearts of men are known to change; a djinn's heart, once given, is his beloved's for all eternity.

At last, after sunrise, he heard Nakis's footsteps treading on the path out of the caves. Zohaqan rushed forward to enfold his Nakis in his arms. The man's body trembled; with cold, or with anxiety, Zohaqan couldn't tell. The djinn heated the water vapor around them into steam, stroking circles on Nakis's back to soothe him. "My Nakis, my dear... Have you prepared yourself to flee? Have you eaten?"

Nakis sank into Zohaqan's embrace. He took a breath of steam, exhaling it in a long shudder. "I had some scraps from last night's meal. It'll have to be enough to keep me going for a day's march—we can't stop until we're sure they won't find us."

"You weren't followed?" Nakis shook his head, his arms still clamped around Zohaqan's form, though his shaking was subsiding now. He pulled his head back to look into Zohaqan's eyes.

"No, but we have to hurry. When the watch changes, someone will notice that my things are missing." He loosened his arms and stepped back. "You're really coming with me?"

Zohaqan took Nakis's hands, brushing his fingers over the jewel that bound Nakis to him. "Yes."

"I'm so glad." Nakis's eyes leaked tears, but they must have been from joy, not from pain or discomfort. "Thank you," he said, a note of awe in his voice. Zohaqan basked in his smile. Gratitude seemed a strange response from one who had bestowed a gift, rather than received one.

"When you gave me this token," Zohaqan said, "you spoke of being my protector and my comforter." Nakis nodded, his smile dimpling. Zohaqan's essence fizzed with pleasure at the sight. "You required nothing of me in return but that I accept you—yet you risk great peril to vouchsafe my freedom." He raised another of his hands to stroke Nakis's cheek, smearing the trail of saltwater there. "It may be selfish of me to accept a bargain you made at such a disadvantage, but I couldn't refuse you."

Nakis squeezed their joined hands. "It wasn't a bargain, it was an oath," he said. Zohaqan searched his eyes, finding no prevarication or doubt there, only sincerity. Nakis lifted the djinn's fingers to his lips to kiss them. "I trust you. We're going to protect each other, no matter what." His lifeblood pulsed through his body with each beat of his mortal heart: a paradox of vulnerability and strength.

Zohaqan wondered at the confidence that Nakis placed in him. "You were right, my Nakis. If our enemies would bind us to keep us from one another, then we must do what we can to escape them." The djinn lifted Nakis's body so that his feet dangled, eliciting a hiccup of laughter from him. "Let's see them try to outpace a stormwind!"

Nakis's smile dimmed when he regained his feet. "You were right too, though."

"Of course," Zohaqan agreed. Naturally, he was always right, though Nakis must have been referring to some specific past conclusion.

Nakis pursed his lips in a wry expression. "I mean, you were right that I have nowhere to escape to... I've lost two homes, now." He spread his arms to encompass the desert. "I don't have any idea where to go. All I know is we can't go east—" he frowned in the direction of the corsairs' caves— "or south. I guess that leaves north and west." He pointed at the expanse of wilderness to the north. "What's out there? Can you tell me?"

Zohaqan looked to the northern horizon. "Long ago, heroes of old walked these lands, seeking to draw close to their gods. That way lies Augury Rock, where generations of mortals have attempted the trials of Ascension." In more recent years, Zohaqan's storm clouds did not blow in that direction; they would not again for a long time hence. "The Elder Dragon Kralkatorrik's corruption has accursed the land and skies there. None may cross that way safely, except those who are already dead or Branded."

Nakis sighed. "Not a good direction, then. What's to the west?"

The Elon, in its altered course across the land, had watered a swath of the continent that had once been barren. "Ruins of mortal cities lie scattered across the desert. Some living settlements remain, along where the river flows west and north to the sea," Zohaqan said. "One such city that I know is the oasis of Amnoon. My rains haven't flowed there for a time, though; not since the dragon blighted the passage through the mountains to the north."

"An oasis..." Nakis mused. "Maybe we can make it there, if we follow the river's northern bank. West it is." Without another word, he set off walking in the opposite direction to the rising sun.

Zohaqan hung back. "Wait!" he called. Nakis raised his eyebrows, questioning. "I must bind myself to a vessel before I can follow you," Zohaqan said. "So that you may carry it with you."

"Why?" Nakis frowned, clearly unhappy with the prospect of Zohaqan binding himself to anything. "I thought you could go wherever the rains go."

"I am the Spirit of the Storm," Zohaqan said in answer. Nakis still didn't seem to understand, so Zohaqan indicated the sky to the southeast, where clouds were converging. "By nature, I marshal the storms and follow the clouds where the winds take them. You know this, my Nakis."

"Yes," Nakis protested, "but aren't you free to go wherever you choose?" He crossed his arms. "Isn't that why we're running away in the first place?"

Zohaqan thought how to explain. "I choose to follow you, yet my elements choose to follow the rains," he said. "It would be more comfortable for me to attach myself to a vessel, so that I may remain at your side for as long as you need me."

"All right..." Nakis's brow still furrowed, but he nodded. "Wait here. I'll be right back." He ran off toward the grottoes, returning some time later with the vase that had so vexed him the previous day. Nakis placed the vase on the ground before Zohaqan. "It won't hurt you, will it?" he asked, eyeing the vase with animosity.

"Not at all," Zohaqan said. "Don't worry; it's only a little uncomfortable."

Nakis made a noise of disagreement. "I know you said it would be easier for you, but... I hate this." He scuffed a foot at a clump of grasses in the mud. "Thinking of you cooped up in that awful thing. It's not right." Zohaqan's heart warmed at Nakis's concern—most mortals wouldn't give a second thought to a djinn using a vessel as a sleeping-place.

Zohaqan closed the distance between them to stroke Nakis's skin where his neck met his shoulder. Nakis relaxed with a sigh, though a line remained between his eyebrows. "I needn't stay in the jar once I'm bound to it," Zohaqan said. "It will act as a... point of focus, a sort of center for my being. I'll return to it to rest, if I need to, but otherwise I'll be at liberty." He would not have to rest nearly as often as Nakis; he could hold vigil while Nakis slept. Though, he thought, he would rather hold Nakis, if Nakis would allow him to.

Nakis bit his lip. "So it'll be like... a temporary shelter? Not the most comfortable, but portable and convenient for a journey?"

"Yes," Zohaqan affirmed. "This won't take long." Nakis stepped back, watching the jar on the ground. Zohaqan concentrated, coiling his essence and feeding it into the mouth of the vase, like threading a needle. A final push and he was inside the ceramic pot, feeling strangely untethered now that his essence was cut off from the waters of the Elon. Perhaps the closest that a mortal could feel to this concept was the lightness that followed shearing a lock of hair or shedding a pelt. It didn't hurt, but would take getting used to.

Zohaqan reemerged from the vase, stretching out the kinks in his essence from the vessel's cramping. Nakis exhaled a relieved breath when he saw that Zohaqan remained unharmed. "It's done. Now we may go," Zohaqan said.

Nakis knelt to pick up the vase, then handed it to Zohaqan. "Here, put it in my pack." He turned around, hefting his pack higher on his shoulders, and Zohaqan lifted the flap of leather to open it. Nestled there among Nakis's meager belongings—a bundle of cloth, a coil of rope, a battered tin pot, wooden utensils, and a flax rug—was the glass bottle of lily perfume, Zohaqan was pleased to discover. He nudged aside some cloth to make room for the vase.

As they set off westward, Zohaqan kept his senses attuned to their surroundings, watching for hidden predators or pursuit from behind. Nakis maintained a steady walking pace, conjuring dry rock to step on so that he would leave no footprints in the mud. He must have been hungry, but his demeanor remained cheerful as ever, and the featureless distance that stretched ahead of them did not seem to daunt him at all. As the sun climbed higher, he even whistled in time with his steps: a work-song that Zohaqan recognized from those that Nakis had taught him. Nakis stopped abruptly when Zohaqan laid a hand on his shoulder to whisper a warning. "I sense something past the next rise—scarabs in flight." There was no cover; they would have to walk right by where the scarabs would detect them.

Nakis glanced around. "I can't hear anything yet... How many?" He drew two knives from his belt: wooden knives, too dull to pierce a scarab's chitinous hide, but adequate for channeling elemental magic at close range.

"Three," said Zohaqan. "They haven't noticed us yet. Get behind me; I'll dispatch them." Scarabs could blind their prey while airborne, making Nakis far more susceptible than Zohaqan, who had a djinn's infallible eyes.

"I'll cover you." Nakis channeled fire around his hands. "Go." He turned so they were back-to-back; thus watching one another's flank, they crested the hill. The scarab drones spotted them and veered toward them, their wings buzzing angrily. Though they were as large as Nakis, their erratic flight would make them difficult targets to hit. The largest one spat venom at the level of Zohaqan's face; he deflected it, but it was already swiveling around to bite his arm. Its fellows kicked up clouds of grit with their wings. An eruption of fire from behind Zohaqan set all three insects aflame. "On your left!" Nakis coughed, choking on the smoke from their singed wings.

Zohaqan blocked the scarab's attempted dive toward his left arms with a blast of ice. The djinn whipped up a wind, raising his hands to the sky. Before he could ready a lightning strike, a jolt of electricity from Nakis struck one of the scarabs in its underside. Nakis was fighting two of them at once, flinging fire from one blade and wind from the other. He knocked one out of the air. Zohaqan pinned it with frozen water around its legs, slowing it for a barrage of hail to pummel it in the back. The largest one's mandibles, glistening with venom, lashed behind Zohaqan before he could call out a warning. He heard Nakis yelp in pain as human blood spattered the sand. Zohaqan didn't have time to judge the extent of the injury; he washed a wave of healing magic in Nakis's direction, hoping it would be enough to stanch his bleeding. Lightning crashed from the clear sky to hit one scarab as it swerved midair for another attack. It crumpled to the ground, temporarily stunned. The third one flew to charge at Zohaqan's face. He made to swat it aside, but hesitated—if he could keep this one's interest, he could shield Nakis from its attempts to blind him with its wings.

Hailstones pelted down from above, but none met their mark; Zohaqan clenched ice in his fists and waited for another opening. From behind him, he saw Nakis leap past on a surge of lightning, too quick for the two grounded scarabs to counter. Nakis breathed a cone of frost to engulf them. Then he spun on his heel, tossing water magic from his right hand to his left and using his right hand to hurl a spike of rock at the remaining scarab, catching it on its forewing. It reeled in its flight and crashed earthward. Nakis skidded around it to follow up with whipping water and stone from both hands, snaring all three scarabs in a trail of sticky mud. Zohaqan finally had a clear shot at them: with a blast of lightning, he fried them in their carapaces, leaving the stench of charred meat in the air.

When he had ascertained that the scarabs were no longer a threat, Zohaqan turned to Nakis, regenerative magic at the ready. "Are you hurt?"

Nakis was breathing heavily, but seemed uninjured. Zohaqan's water magic must have knitted his flesh back together, for he was no longer bleeding. He stowed the two knives at his belt, then pinched his nose. "Eugh. Cooked scarab."

Zohaqan was staring at Nakis's hands, one of which glowed with earth magic and the other with water. "How are you doing that? Attuning to two elements at the same time? You did it yesterday, too, when you created this diamond for me." A remarkable show of skill; his Nakis was clever indeed.

"You taught me how," said Nakis, grinning. What could he possibly mean? None of their elemental training had involved such a feat. "When you explained how you hold your form in mind," he elaborated, "I figured I could learn to do that. Holding elements in mind."

Zohaqan folded his arms, nonplussed. "How could you keep such a high level of concentration in the confusion of battle?" Nakis was sound of mind and body—and was in quite fine form, in Zohaqan's esteem—yet even the most powerful djinn would struggle to do what he had done.

"Ha!" Nakis beamed. "Finally, my mortal body's good for something." He spread out his arms and bounced on his feet. "My body chugs along on its own without any input from my conscious mind. I don't need to pay attention to it to keep it from dissolving, see?"

"Ah, yes." Zohaqan conceded that in this way, mortals had an advantage over djinn. "I've heard legends of mortals who were able to weave two elements in combat that way. Now that I can see how you do it, it's not so impressive." Nakis stuck his tongue out at him, laughing. "I'm glad that our sparring has kept your instincts sharp. You handle yourself well in a fight, my Nakis."

"Mmm, I like it when you compliment me," Nakis said, his eyes twinkling. They both turned their attention to the dead scarabs. "It seems a shame to waste food, but by the gods, they stink."

Zohaqan blew a breeze to clear the smoke from the scarab carcasses. "If we find any garlic or onion, I can use their earth essences to make the insect meat more palatable to you."

Nakis shrugged. "Eventually I'll be hungry enough to try it, even without garlic or onion." They made short work of compressing the insects' bodies into a compact powder, storing it in Nakis's tin pot. "We could've put it in your vase," Nakis suggested, his grin indicating that he spoke in jest.

"No! You wouldn't be so cruel, would you, my Nakis?" Zohaqan ruffled Nakis's hair with a breeze. "I wouldn't put ground-up scarab in your bedroll." Zohaqan did not want Nakis to have any negative association with his bedroll, not only because he hoped to join Nakis in it at some point.

"Oh, fine. If we need another container, I'll put the lily perfume in your vase instead." Nakis pulled the glass bottle from his pack, removed the stopper, and sniffed it with a contented sigh. "Now everything in my pack smells like lilies. I love it."

Zohaqan extracted some liquid scent from the bottle and spread it behind Nakis's ears. "There. Now you may forget the odor of scorched scarab, as though it had never offended your senses."

They re-packed everything and continued on their way. No other predators approached close enough to threaten them; they had to skirt a den of sand lions, and avoided two eel nests and a devourer burrow by the time the sun started to dip below the horizon. Zohaqan floated in front of Nakis to shield his eyes from the glare as they traveled toward the setting sun. The air cooled rapidly in the twilight; Nakis would have to rest soon. Ideally they would find some cover, in case the corsairs came looking for them, but even out in the open Zohaqan could shelter Nakis from the elements and keep him warm through the night.

"This looks like a good place to stop," said Nakis, when they neared a cluster of boulders at the crest of a hill. "We're lucky it's a nearly full moon tonight, so I don't have to light a torch to see." They set to shaping the earth between the boulders to make a bivouac, arranging the rocks to camouflage it.

"You must be hungry," Zohaqan said when he was satisfied that the stones would conceal Nakis's sleeping-place. Nakis stood unmoving, head tilted, his eyes pinning Zohaqan with the intensity of their gaze. "It's unfortunate we came across no plants to make you a more flavorful meal."

"I'm not hungry." Nakis licked his lips. "I'm thirsty."

"Haven't you been conjuring water to drink?" Zohaqan examined him. His pulse seemed normal, if a bit fast, which was to be expected when he had been walking for such a distance without rest. The balance of water and earth essences in his body appeared unchanged from this morning; though he must have sweated and exhaled a good deal of water, he had replenished it in equal measure.

Nakis nodded, a corner of his mouth twitching upward. He walked closer, some sway in the movement of his body catching Zohaqan's eye before Zohaqan looked back to meet his stare. Nakis took one of Zohaqan's hands and lifted it to the level of his mouth. "I'm thirsty," he said again, blinking in affected innocence. Then he touched his lips to Zohaqan's fingers, kissed the tips of them. If he wasn't dehydrated, nor suffering from exhaustion, could he be—? Zohaqan quivered at the brush of Nakis's tongue that pulled at his essence, as though to drink him in. _Oh._ Yes, it seemed, he could be—that.

"Let me give you water, then," Zohaqan said in a murmur. He cupped two of his other hands and conjured liquid to pool between them. Nakis tipped them toward his lips to sip, mouthing at the edges of Zohaqan's fingers as he swallowed the water. When Nakis finished drinking, it was with a sound of gratification that Zohaqan felt as a suffusion of heat all the way through his form. He caressed Nakis's lips to chase after that exhilarating warmth.

"I seem to recall," Nakis said, his eyes dark with what Zohaqan was coming to recognize as arousal, "that you broke a promise to me yesterday."

Zohaqan froze, his essence thrumming with Nakis's quickened heartbeat. How could he have denied Nakis anything, especially something Zohaqan had promised? Unacceptable. "Ah," he said when he remembered. He condensed his essence to shift into the form of the swordsman that had made Nakis's knees go weak two days ago. His senses adjusted to the peculiar electrochemistry of a human body, dulling his awareness in some ways and sharpening it in others. "I've been remiss, it would seem."

"Mmm..." Nakis smirked, reaching out to run his hands across Zohaqan's chest and down to his waist. Zohaqan shivered at the warmth that Nakis's fingers trailed on his skin. "Got to do something about that." With a gleam of wickedness in his eyes, Nakis crushed their hips together, smile expanding to show his teeth. Zohaqan gasped, feeling his human breath and blood react in a manner that was entirely predictable, yet no less startling. It was intoxicating, the heat and hardness of Nakis's body pressed against his—so incredibly _good_ — How could mortals ever accomplish anything, when they could make themselves feel like this—?

He'd obviously miscalculated how desire would addle his senses in this form. Still, Zohaqan certainly wasn't complaining. "How," he asked, when he had taken a moment to compose himself, "do you suggest I might—ah—" his breathing hitched when Nakis's hands moved down to cup his backside— "make it up to you?"

Nakis leaned closer to whisper a hairsbreadth from Zohaqan's lips. "I've got some ideas."

He captured Zohaqan's mouth in a searing kiss, tongue sliding past his lips to stroke inside. At the same time, he grabbed a handful of Zohaqan's hair to tilt his head in an angle that made the djinn utter a cry of surprise, swallowing the exclamation in a moan. Before he gave over to sensation and ceased to think for a while, Zohaqan thrilled in the discovery that this time, he was the one who'd gone weak in the knees.


	7. Wayfaring

Days after they had stopped worrying about any corsairs overtaking them, the western horizon had become naught but a flat line in the distance. Nakis was familiar with the way that heat rising from the sands could make the air shimmer like water, but something about the blurs of color where the sky touched the earth, green striped with brown, suggested a man-made pattern. Tilled farmland, not a mirage: a prison camp, Nakis supposed. He straightened, tightening the muscles in his back and shoulders.

Zohaqan seemed to notice his unease. The djinn tugged at the straps of Nakis's pack with one hand and sought out Nakis's fingers with another. Nakis grasped Zohaqan's hand and brought it to his lips in absentminded affection. "Your burden must tire you," said Zohaqan. "I hadn't thought about it before. Aren't you weary?"

"It's fine." Nakis had carried heavier burdens on achier muscles in the past. The soreness in his legs from walking had long since faded, as had the twinges and stings from minor injuries that water magic could easily mend. "Really, I'm all right. I hardly notice the weight any more."

"I could share the load," Zohaqan offered. "I could even carry you and the pack both." Nakis stifled a laugh at the image of the djinn wearing backpack straps on two of his arms and holding Nakis bridal-style with the other two.

"No thanks," he said, squeezing Zohaqan's hand in reassurance. "You need to conserve all your strength for making food I can eat." Nakis did what he could to help, but there were only so many nutrients that Zohaqan could extract from scarabs and swamp grass, even with his considerable skill.

"Something else weighs on you, then," said Zohaqan. "You are uneasy." Nakis relaxed his shoulders with a sigh when Zohaqan pressed at the nape of his neck. "Let me relieve you."

Nakis smiled. Did he realize how often Nakis's thoughts turned to innuendo whenever he spoke? That voice—deep and resonant, smooth and refreshing as a tall drink of water... Nakis could listen to him for hours, lulled by the song of thunder. He shook his head and pointed straight ahead of them. "I think we're getting close to an exile encampment."

"Exile..." Zohaqan's eyes met Nakis's. "People like you? Those whom your king Palawa Joko has banished from his domain?"

The cast-offs of society. Criminals. Those close enough to Joko to fall out of his favor, and those too far beneath his notice to deserve his mercy. Nakis nodded grimly.

Zohaqan warmed the air next to Nakis's skin to ease the morning's chill. "Did you know any others? Any who were exiled with you?"

"No one I was close to." By the grace of the Six, none of his loved ones had been with him when the soldiers came, that horrible day. The secret followers of Kormir had signs for who was a friend and who was an enemy, but had he really known his neighbors, when any of them could have been the one who turned in the others? "There was a Mordant Crescent raid before dawn one day, when some people were praying. The lucky ones got sentenced to a work camp to serve out their punishment. The unlucky ones..." Whether it was luck or the gods' intervention that had decided his fate, Nakis didn't care to know. "They took us out to the wilderness and left us there to die."

Zohaqan was silent for a while as they drew closer to the distant fields. "You count yourself among the unlucky."

Nakis considered. "The moment our caravan turned off the road—when I realized what was happening, I was devastated. I'd lost everything..." His fingers clutched at the prayer beads on his opposite wrist. "Almost everything I'd ever had. My home, my friends and family." Because he loved them, he'd prayed that they would never have reason to see him alive again. "All of a sudden, my life had an expiration date, and I was so scared. I didn't want to die."

The djinn must have thought Nakis illogical; didn't all mortal lives have an expiration date? But Zohaqan said nothing, waiting for Nakis to continue. Nakis did so, swallowing around the lump in his throat. "Near the end, though, when the others got sick, I was too tired to be afraid. I thought..." Nakis conjured some fresh water to wet his lips. "I thought maybe—it would be a relief to die. Maybe Grenth would grant me peace, if I couldn't have it in this world. Or—" He twirled one of his beads in silence for a moment. Words of blasphemy soured his tongue where they welled up from his heart. Goddess forgive him for his weakness. "I thought that maybe King Joko would pardon me for disobeying him, if I were dead," he whispered. "Maybe he'd Awaken me, so I could be with my family again."

Zohaqan's cool fingers soothed his brow, stroked through his hair with tenderness. "You miss them."

Nakis nodded, thinning his lips. "But it didn't matter, because I didn't die. The corsairs found me instead. And now—" He turned his head to meet Zohaqan's eyes. "I'm glad I wasn't sent to the work camp. That I have the chance to be free, with you." He leaned in to kiss Zohaqan's face, where his cheek would be. "Now I believe that I was lucky."

The silence that settled between them was comfortable, soft. They spoke no more of banishment, of death, or of absent friends. Rather, Zohaqan gentled the pain of Nakis's memory; eased the knots in his mind and body, pressing with delicate fingers that weighed no more than clouds against his skin. By unspoken agreement, they steered well clear of the prison encampment, turning south instead to follow the river's flow. Nakis hummed a melody from the fields of home as he walked, soulful and slow as a dirge.

 _Wade in the water_  
_Wade in the water, children_  
_Wade in the water_  
_Gods are gonna trouble the water_...

After some hours the farmland faded behind them, until it was no more than a shadow on the northeastern horizon. They picked up the remnants of a road, flooded and overgrown with mosses, that wended west and north through the cliffs. Crumbling ruins jutted up amid the shattered flagstones. Zohaqan identified them as temples and monuments of ancient pilgrims, whose names and works were lost to time.

They kept to the shadows of hanging vines and canyon walls so as to avoid any Awakened patrols and prison caravans that might come this way. Towering statues in King Joko's image—obviously newer additions to the rubble—loomed over them with dead and watchful eyes. Some said that Joko's awareness extended through every one of his statues, that the lich-king could hear and see everything in his domain, but surely that was false; only the Goddess could know all secrets. Still, Nakis thought it wise to stay out of sight.

The nights were growing colder. When the sky was clear, Nakis would lie beside Zohaqan to watch the stars, cocooned in dry warmth thanks to his magic. Nakis suspected that he also had Zohaqan's magic to thank for the clarity and brilliance of their view of the heavens—the cold Colossus rains were imminent—but the djinn never admitted to chasing the clouds away. He seemed to have a thousand tales to tell Nakis: tales of gods and djinn, of heroes and dragons; of strange people from faraway lands, who called the stars by other names. "Do you know any songs of the stars?" Nakis asked him one night. He was curled up with Zohaqan at his back, two of the djinn's arms around his chest, leaving the other two free to alternately point out constellations and play with Nakis's hair. Zohaqan chanted in a soothing rumble that vibrated through Nakis's body.

" _We are the stars which sing;_  
_We sing with our light;_  
_We are the birds of fire;_  
_We fly over the sky._  
_Our light is a voice;_  
_We make a road for spirits,_  
_For the spirits to pass over_..."

Nakis felt he was floating on the currents of Zohaqan's voice. He blinked and realized they were floating indeed, lying on air. Laughing, he turned in Zohaqan's arms to face him, watching the magic glow in his enchanting eyes. "I think you'll like this melody I know."

"Oh?" Zohaqan's fingers cradled his head and stroked down his back, making his skin tingle with magic. "Sing it for me." Nakis's voice was soft as he breathed the night air.

" _Clear is the sky, so bright and fine,_  
_Quiet at midnight, silent hush._  
_Not so my heart—it's overrun,_  
_Pouring desires out one by one._

 _One rushes forth in heated haste_  
_Rousing you sweetly from your dream;_  
_While yet another spurs the rest,_  
_Lavishing kisses on your breast._ "

Zohaqan twined his form around Nakis's legs and tightened his arms around him. The djinn's head sought the crook of his neck, kissing him there with a touch lighter than raindrops.

" _Come down, my darling one, come down;_  
_Warm in my arms you'll find your bliss._  
_Quiet at midnight, silent hush,_  
_Smooth is the grass, so soft and lush._  


_Pale is the moonset, dark the sky,_  
_Shrouding our secrets from the world._  
_Even in darkness, never doubt,_  
_I'll always find your little mouth_..."

Nakis smiled and hummed as Zohaqan kissed his lips, his toes curling in satisfaction. He had been correct, then, in thinking Zohaqan would like that particular song.

* * *

The road disappeared into a mire that stretched as far as Nakis could see in every direction. It was almost indistinguishable from the surrounding dunes but for the conspicuous lack of vegetation, and the tell-tale fins of sand sharks that poked above the surface. "You'll have to carry me," Nakis said, "unless we find some other way across." If they'd had a trained raptor, like the ones in Joko's cavalry, they could have leapt from perch to perch with ease. They would have to make do without such means of transport.

Zohaqan scooped him up and sailed over the quicksand, stopping whenever there was a patch of ground large enough for Nakis to stand on. He never stumbled, but after hours of traveling this way, Nakis could see the djinn's form was growing faint and watery; he was flagging. "Let's stop here," Nakis urged him, alighting on a sandbar that was the only solid ground in view.

Zohaqan fretted over leaving Nakis to keep watch, though it was clear he was exhausted. "The sand sharks—"

Nakis sat back on his heels, placing his pack between his knees and opening it to reveal the mouth of Zohaqan's vase. "Don't worry," he said, taking one of the djinn's hands and interlacing their fingers. After all these days of journeying, Zohaqan had guarded him with tireless vigilance; it was Nakis's turn to play the protector. "They're solitary hunters—I can handle one sand shark, if it comes too close. You get some rest."

With a grateful kiss, Zohaqan swirled into his vase, which rattled once and then lay still. Nakis smiled at the expression that came to mind at the sight: _Storm in a tea-kettle._ He settled down to wait, keeping his eyes scanning over the mire.

The moon rose. A light spattering of mist came down from clouds that scudded in overhead; now that Zohaqan was sleeping, Nakis supposed the rains would catch up to them in the next few hours. He would stay comfortable enough by evaporating the drizzle with fire magic before it touched him.

After sunrise, when Nakis had finished his dawn prayers, a strange shape on the western horizon caught his eye. It was not the fin of an approaching sand shark, but nor did it have the erratic flight path of an insect. It couldn't be a creature with legs, though. What was it?

It glided closer. Nakis stood, reaching for his wooden knives. The shape resolved itself into... not a sand shark, though it moved somewhat like one, hovering above the surface of the quicksand. A fish? It had mouthparts and fins like an aquatic creature, but seemed to breathe by pushing air underneath itself. Nakis had never seen anything like it before. It ignored him, tail flicking under the sand like a whip, its wing-like fins billowing.

"Hyah!" A voice cried in the distance from the direction the creature had come. Nakis shifted his weight to a defensive stance, but he was aware of the deadly mire that surrounded him. If that voice was an Awakened patrol, he had nowhere to run.

Soon afterwards a humanoid figure, riding on the back of another floating fish, sailed into view. Not Awakened—it was a living human, a man. "Ahai," the man called as soon as he caught sight of Nakis. "What are you doing out there?"

Nakis relaxed a fraction. The man was no corsair; he carried no weapons, holding onto his steed with reins and a harness attached to a curiously shaped saddle. "I'm stuck," he called back. "Can you help?"

The man rode closer and hopped off the creature's back onto Nakis's sandbar, making a clicking noise with his tongue. The other fish-creature floated toward him to nudge at a hunk of meat he dangled from one hand. He tossed the food into its mouth and it whirred happily, tapping his shoulder with its tail. "There you go. Had your fun, have you?" the man cooed as he tickled the skin above its eyes. "This one's a trickster," he said to Nakis. "Third time she's escaped her pen this year."

Nakis admired the graceful sweep of the fish-creature's fins. "What are they?"

"We call them skimmers," said the man. "Guess you aren't from around these parts?" Nakis shook his head. The man bowed to introduce himself. "Name's Ravi. I'm a ranch hand."

"I'm Nakis," Nakis replied, bending his head in deference. "You have a ranch? For these skimmers?"

Ravi nodded. "Beautiful creatures, aren't they? They're very gentle—love being around people. You could learn to ride one in no time." He took an intricate-looking leather harness from his pack. "Cora here doesn't like wearing her tack, but she'll be more agreeable now she's wangled a treat out of me. I'm sure that was her plan all along." He patted the top of Cora the skimmer's head. "Once I've got her in the harness, I'll take her and you can ride Noolu. He's easier to handle; we start all the new riders off with him." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "It's not too far back to the ranch. How'd you make it out here in the middle of a pool of quicksand, anyway? Did your raptor get spooked making a jump?"

"Um," said Nakis. Ravi seemed friendly enough, but who knew how he'd react to the knowledge that Nakis had flown here in the arms of a storm djinn? He ducked his head and said a silent apology to the Goddess for his white lie. "I was traveling with a—a friend. We got separated when we were crossing through here."

Ravi nodded in sympathy. "Raptors can be skittish if they aren't trained well. We can round up a search party for your friend when we get back."

"Thank you," said Nakis, bowing again. "You're very kind."

"You a defector?" Ravi asked as he slung the harness's straps around Cora with expert ease, quieting the skimmer with more clicks of his tongue. "Here, hold her reins while I help you up."

Nakis gripped the ropes that Ravi handed him and clambered onto Noolu's back with his assistance. Ravi picked up Nakis's pack and held it up while Nakis snaked his arms through the straps. "Thanks," he said again. "Um... what do you mean, a defector?"

"From Joko's kingdom?" Ravi prompted. "A runaway? A refugee?"

"Huh." Nakis had never thought of himself in those terms before. "I'm... a runaway, I guess. I was exiled."

"Mmm. Typical. You won't see Awakened patrols out this way, so you don't have to worry about getting caught. You're practically home free—if you can make it through the desert, anyway." Ravi swung himself onto Cora's back. She swooped around in midair in a dizzying barrel roll, making Nakis yelp in alarm and Ravi whoop with laughter. "See, told you she was a trickster!"

Nakis swallowed. "Noolu won't do that, will he?"

Ravi pulled Cora around to head west, signaling Noolu to follow. "Nah, he knows not to scare you. Just hold on tight and we'll be back home in no time."

The skimmer ranch turned out to be a village of squat pyramids rising above the marsh, bustling with activity. A woman standing watch on the roof of a pyramid called in greeting to Ravi. "Hey, who's your new friend?"

"This is Nakis," Ravi called back, waving to the woman. "He got separated from his traveling companion—found him stuck in the quicksand. Nakis, that's Nura. She's in charge of rations and logistics."

"Ahai," Nakis said to Nura, bobbing his head. He climbed down from Noolu's back with less grace than Ravi, splashing as he hopped to the ground. "Thanks again for rescuing me. This is amazing—I had no idea there was a ranch all the way out here."

Ravi led Nakis to the center of the cluster of buildings. "Not many do. Hey, Ardra? Got any people to spare for a search party? Nakis here lost the friend he was traveling with."

A woman stood up from where she had been repairing a wooden fence. She brushed her hands on her knees and came over to look Nakis up and down with an air of authority. "A traveler, huh? You here to work?"

Nakis bowed. "I can help with whatever needs doing. I owe Ravi a debt for getting me out of the quicksand." He straightened to meet the woman's gaze; she was of a height with him. "You run this place, I take it?"

Ardra nodded. "There's always work for an able body out here. Can't spare any people for a search party right now, but ask Nura to help when she gets off shift." She bent down to pick up a bucket of fish and pressed it into Nakis's hands. "Go feed the pups in the nursery pen over there. Don't worry, they don't bite—they've got no teeth." Nakis nodded and set to work. By noon, he was ravenously hungry. Ardra deemed him too skinny and gave him an extra ration of fish at the ranchers' luncheon table. "You've done good work—consider your debt paid."

"Thank you." Nakis stuffed his mouth with fish and vegetables, savoring the welcome change from tasteless swamp roots and scarab meat.

"Are you worried about your friend?" Ravi asked him as Nakis shoveled more savory fish stew into his mouth. "What was his name again?"

Nakis chewed and swallowed his mouthful. "Zohaqan. He'll be all right, but I should go—look for him." Ravi started to stand up but Nakis waved him back down. "No, no, it's fine, you've done enough for me. I can find him myself."

Ravi shrugged. "If you're sure. There are lookouts around the outside of camp who might be able to help." Nakis nodded in thanks and hurried away from the meal tent, looking for a secluded spot to open his pack.

Zohaqan's vase was silent and unmoving, secure between his spare clothes and his bedroll. Nakis rubbed a finger against the lip of the jar, calling softly. "Zohaqan... can you hear me?"

The djinn surged out of the vase and looked around for Nakis. "What's happened? Are you all right, my Nakis? Where are we?" He still seemed fuddled with sleep. Nakis reassured him with a hug and laid his head against the djinn's shoulder.

"Shh. We're fine. Some people found me. Can you disguise yourself as a human?" Nakis hated to disturb the djinn's rest; still, he worried that the ruse of his missing friend wouldn't hold up for long. "They're friendly, but I don't know how they'd react to a djinn."

Zohaqan obligingly condensed himself into the shape of the well-muscled human man that he had assumed on previous occasions, which Nakis was trying his hardest not to think about right now—the djinn needed to rest. There would be time enough for that later. In human form, his eyes were drooping and his feet were dragging. He leaned on Nakis for support, and Nakis bore his solid weight as they tottered back toward the center of the ranch. Ravi ran to meet him from the meal tent. "Here, take him to the rest area. No one will bother him in here." He supervised as Nakis tucked Zohaqan into his own bedroll and asked if Nakis needed anything. "Thank the gods you found him before the sand sharks did—he looks beat. Is he all right? What happened to your raptor?"

Nakis flailed for an answer. "Uh... it's—gone. Probably halfway to Amnoon by now." He twisted his fingers into Zohaqan's hair and the djinn made a contented purring noise. "He's just tired. He'll be fine." Ravi let the tent flap fall closed with a nod. Nakis tugged the vase out of his pack again. "Here, love, it's all right now," he whispered to Zohaqan. "Go back to sleep. I'll keep watch." Zohaqan's form faded into mist and curled back into the ceramic jar. Nakis hoped that he'd only need a few more hours' rest before the ranch hands came back to ask about him.

Ravi was waiting for him outside the tent. "Shame about your raptor. It might turn up again, if it doesn't get eaten by a hydra." Nakis hummed his assent. "You sure Zohaqan's all right?"

"Yes, yes. We're both tired; he's been up even longer than I have." Nakis yawned. "I could really use a nap too."

"No worries. You must have had a long journey." Ravi clapped him on the shoulder. "Sleep as long as you need to. There's enough room in the tent for two more. I'll wake you for breakfast tomorrow morning." He crossed his arms. "Ardra will want you to work some more in exchange for your meals and lodging. Is that all right?"

"Of course." With a bow of leave-taking, Nakis stumbled backward into the tent. He climbed into his bedroll after stuffing his extra clothes inside it for additional bulk. They hadn't had a proper wash in weeks—water magic did have its limits—but Nakis hoped they wouldn't smell, and that the ranch hands wouldn't investigate too closely. Nakis sharing his bedroll with another man was unlikely to faze them, but a djinn... He snuggled up to the vase hidden in the pile of clothes. Nakis wouldn't let anybody take advantage of Zohaqan. As long as no one guessed his true nature, Nakis could keep him safe.

The ranch hands came in with hushed voices when it was time for bed. Nakis feigned sleep, not allowing himself to drift off until he was certain that no one would remark on Zohaqan's implied presence. He woke just before dawn and crept out of the tent with his bedroll and pack. Zohaqan's form was much more solid this time when Nakis stirred him from the vase with a brush of his fingers. "How did you sleep?" he asked Zohaqan in a murmur, greeting him with a good-morning kiss.

"I am well." Zohaqan looked around them, taking in the tents, buildings, and fences. "It's fortunate that you were able to cross the mire the rest of the way without me. How did you do it?"

Nakis told him of the skimmers and how Ravi had plucked him from out of the jaws of the quicksand. "If we could stay here for a while, work for pay and get one of those for me to ride, it would make a huge difference. We could reach the river mouth in a matter of days—maybe even travel over the sea!"

"We'll need two of them," Zohaqan corrected. "One for me and one for you. I'll have to disguise myself as human, yes?"

"I'm sorry." Nakis reached for Zohaqan's upper right hand, kissing his promise-ring in apology. "I had to think fast. If people knew what you are—if they tried to capture you, like Buna wanted to—"

Zohaqan shifted to take man's form once more. "It's of no consequence. I like the novelty of it." He smiled and nosed at Nakis's cheek. "There are tales of djinn who walked the earth in disguise for many human lifetimes: going on adventures, exploring the land with human companions." He nipped at Nakis's earlobe. "Bedding human lovers."

Nakis snickered. "I'd appreciate it if I'm the only human lover you're bedding on this adventure." He stuffed his spare clothes back into his pack and handed it to Zohaqan along with the bedroll. "Go back in there and pretend to sleep, all right? It should be time for breakfast once I'm done with dawn prayers."

"As you wish, my Nakis." Zohaqan kissed him soundly on the lips and reentered the tent, lithe and silent as a cat.

If Nakis's mind wandered a bit more than usual as he recited his morning benedictions, he was sure the Goddess would understand. She had once been human herself, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Wade in the Water" is a spiritual associated with the Underground Railroad and escape from bondage. The Fisk Jubilee Singers preserved it in print in 1901.
> 
> Zohaqan's song of the stars is of Algonquin origin, translated into English by Charles G. Leland in 1882.
> 
> Nakis's song "Clear is the sky" is my attempt at translating " _Nebo je tako vedro _," a Serbian love song by Jovan Jovanović Zmaj and Stanislav Binički.__


	8. Daybreak

The form that Zohaqan had chosen to adopt while he and Nakis stayed at the skimmer ranch was, he thought, a very practical choice. His human guise didn't need to be fit or strong for him to handle the tasks around the ranch with ease, but it helped sell the illusion if his physique appeared to match his capability and stamina. The obvious effect that his appearance had on Nakis was an added benefit, of course. They caught one another's gaze often while they were both busy with separate chores. Zohaqan had seen Nakis look at him that way before, but it was different when Zohaqan had a body in which to elicit a visceral response. His body knew what that look meant, even more than his mind did.

It wasn't only lust, though that was certainly a component of it. The emotion that mortals call love has a thousand parts, most of which djinn can also name and recognize. Yet there were some parts of love that remained bewilderingly foreign to Zohaqan, making him wonder if any mortal poet had ever adequately described them: the smell of Nakis's cheek, for instance, when Zohaqan nuzzled close to him at night. It was a warm, delicious smell; it compelled Zohaqan to kiss Nakis's skin a hundred times, when he'd thought himself replete with kisses already—under Nakis's ear, next to his nose, beside his mouth where the dimple of his smile would be, over and over. That inexplicable piece of embodied love was what Zohaqan's mind dwelled upon just now, when Nakis's eyes met his in passing.

"Newlyweds, huh?" The woman called Ardra spoke to Zohaqan as he assisted her with hauling and stacking brushwood. There were no trees for lumber here; what little wood the ranch's scouts could find went toward constructing and repairing the enclosures where they kept the skimmers. For cooking and warmth, they burned pitch, which was present in abundance. Having a human nose was an unexpected advantage that Zohaqan welcomed, since he'd lost the ability to detect the bitter tang of tar after breathing the essence of it for many days.

Zohaqan looked at Ardra, puzzled. Was she referring to a couple among the ranch hands? From what he could tell, there were a few mated pairs; none had made any comments of a recent betrothal, though, unless Zohaqan had missed some other indication of it. Ardra pointed to his hand.

"You're always fiddling with your wedding ring—figured it must be new," she said. "And I've seen the way you can't keep your eyes off each other." She was quick to add, "Not that I'm complaining about your work ethic; you're both doing great. I'm just being nosy." She grunted as she hefted the bundle of wood in her arms to place it on top of the others. "Start a new pile over there, will you?"

Zohaqan set his burden on the ground where she indicated, glancing down to his right forefinger. "My—wedding ring?" 

Ardra raised her eyebrows. "I assumed that's what it was. Am I wrong?"

"I—" Zohaqan realized as he glanced up that he was touching the ring in a manner that had become habitual without his noticing. No wonder Ardra had remarked upon it. "My Nakis did give this to me," he said, "but we aren't wed according to the laws of your—" He paused, catching himself. "I mean, we—that is to say—"

"It's all right," she interrupted. "Didn't mean to fluster you." She patted him on the forearm. "I guess you've got your reasons for whatever you want to call your relationship—doesn't make a difference out here to anybody."

"I take no offense," Zohaqan assured her. "It only didn't occur to me that anyone would think..." He thought back to what he knew of human customs. "By what law would you deem a couple married?"

"Well..." Ardra shrugged. "I guess in Joko's kingdom, they might have some convoluted definition of who's married or not under the law, but... don't most people accept the basic formula as good enough to call it a marriage?" She nodded down at Zohaqan's hand. "You know—one person presents the token and swears the oath, the other accepts it, boom—" she clapped her hands in emphasis— "they're married, in the eyes of the Six. No one else needs to be involved, right?" 

Nakis had invoked the names of his gods when he'd made his bargain... no, he had said it was no bargain, but an oath. An oath sworn, a token presented, a bond accepted. Zohaqan's eyes went wide. Was it really so simple for a human to wed himself to a djinn? "That's all?"

She smiled and winked. "If they're both of age, of course. Two kids playing at tying a grass knot wouldn't mean the same thing."

If humans made bonds so easily, was it because they gave their vows no substance? "What might void this contract, if any were to dispute it?"

"Hmm..." Ardra tapped her chin, pondering. "Prior claim, I guess—if someone had made a previous oath to be exclusive, and the second oath contradicted it. Or if anybody coerced either of them into it, the marriage wouldn't be binding. Other than that..." She smirked at him. "If one person didn't understand the terms of the contract when he accepted it, one could argue that he wasn't able to consent to it—making it null and void."

Zohaqan clutched his fingers around his ring in dismay. How could an oath have so little weight, that merely Zohaqan's ignorance of its true meaning was enough to dissolve it? "But—!"

Ardra continued. "But... if both were free to choose, and not bound by the terms of some other contract, then no one would be able to dispute it. It'd be a lasting bond." Her face broke into a grin. "Solid under the law of the land... these lands, anyway. Wouldn't know about how they do it in other places." She slapped Zohaqan's shoulder amiably. "You go and help prepare lunch, all right? It's getting to be time for shift change." She then called to a passing ranch hand. "Hey Cinna, need to talk to you about the feed supplies..." The two humans walked away, heads bent in discussion.

Zohaqan stood by the wood pile and stared down at the ring on his finger in amazement. Had his Nakis really not only pledged his love to Zohaqan, but plighted his troth as well? In any case, he possessed Zohaqan's heart, but the knowledge was dizzying: no mortal authority could deny their bond. Nakis's word may as well have had the power to move mountains. Some time passed before Zohaqan turned toward the meal tent to assist as Ardra had ordered. He had to look down several times to make sure that his legs were walking; he felt as though he floated. It wouldn't do to let his disguise slip now, not when they were so close to the end of their work contract.

In six more days, they would receive enough pay to purchase two young skimmers from the ranch's prime stock. Nakis had taken to riding as he had taken to all other skills that Zohaqan had seen him acquire: with a pronounced lack of finesse, but with plenty of exuberance and a keenness to learn. A master rider he was not. Nevertheless, Nakis was firm in his resolve to travel by water with the skimmers they would soon call their own. "Since you can fly at the same speed without one," Nakis had reasoned, "I could switch off riding them both, so neither will get too tired to carry me. We'll reach the coast in no time." His eyes sparkled with the force of his optimism. "And why stop there? The sea's no obstacle—not when you can tame the winds better than a whole crew full of corsairs!"

It was true; Zohaqan was certain he could command a hurricane, if he ever had the inclination to do so. "Where shall we sail, my Nakis?" Zohaqan asked him. "Shall we follow the trade winds south, where corsairs seek their fortune on the high seas?"

"I like the sound of that." Nakis closed his eyes with a smile. "We'll find an island paradise with clear rivers and sunny beaches... I'll have a garden, with flowers that bloom all year round, and you'll water my plants with the rains."

Nakis's cheerfulness was infectious. "I'll make you a bower of fragrant palm-boughs," Zohaqan said, "and feed you the choicest fruits from the vine."

"We'll watch the sunrise every morning over the ocean. We'll dance together on the waves." Nakis leaned close to Zohaqan's ear and dropped his voice to a sultry whisper. "You'll have your way with me on top of the highest sea cliff, and I'll scream your name so loud it'll scare all the birds away—" Zohaqan had kissed him then, muffling their shared laughter.

On the day of their parting, several of the ranch hands gathered to say goodbye. Zohaqan's skimmer, which they had named Tamar, was chewing at her bit; Zohaqan fed her a fish to appease her impatience to leave. Nakis's mount, called Rangi, was of a calmer disposition; though he had a tendency to dawdle behind his sister if Nakis didn't snap his reins to persuade him to keep going. When they arrived at the Bay of Elon and the open sea, Tamar would clearly be the one to set their pace. Ardra, Ravi, Nura, and the others waved to them as they set off westward over the shallows.

When they reached the main flow of the river, the ranch's structures having long since disappeared behind the canyons, Zohaqan shifted to take his natural form. He swooped ahead of Tamar to hand her bridle off to Nakis, who beamed at him. "It's a relief, isn't it?" Nakis remarked. "Being in your regular body again."

"Yes." Zohaqan caressed the familiar planes of Nakis's chest and back, tasted at the dip of his neck. Nakis's skin was warm and fragrant with his scent—that indescribable essence which Zohaqan's human nose had first brought to his attention. With his djinn senses restored, Zohaqan found that he could at last drink his fill of Nakis, when human kisses had not quite been able to satisfy his craving. "I like the other one too, but this form is altogether superior."

Nakis leaned away from him, veering Rangi to the side and laughing. "Stop distracting me," he chided. "Can't you wait until we make camp for the night?"

"No." Zohaqan ducked his head down to the join of Nakis's legs, where they spread apart on the saddle. "I must have you now."

"Oh—" Nakis cursed and scrambled off Rangi's back, tumbling into Zohaqan's arms. Given free rein, the skimmers wandered off to play in the nearby cove. Zohaqan made efficient use of his four hands to divest Nakis of his garments, spurred by Nakis's breathy encouragements. "Oh gods, yes, please, yes—" They did not proceed on their way until Zohaqan had tasted Nakis everywhere, very thoroughly.

Though his essence was no longer connected to the Elon's waters to feel their pull, Zohaqan knew when the storm clouds blew near that they were getting close to the river delta. The air was heavy with fog that hung low over the marsh, from the moisture of sea winds caught behind the mountains. Zohaqan cleared the mists ahead of the skimmers to guide their path; the cloudbanks would hinder their vision otherwise. Nakis expressed uneasiness at the thickness of the fog. "It's unnerving, not being able to see the banks of the river." He shifted his weight on Tamar's back, tugging Rangi's ropes to get him to keep up. "I keep feeling as though there are predators lurking around us, just out of sight."

Zohaqan pushed the clouds further back, letting the mist roll in behind their backs. "There are none close by. Some are under the water, but they cannot reach us."

"That's good." Nakis looked down. "There are even bigger predators in the sea, aren't there? It's hard to imagine it." Tamar flicked water over his head with her tail, and he petted the side of her head. "Just thinking of the creatures that live down in the depths... Have you ever been there?"

"Not to the seafloor," said Zohaqan. "My storms brew at the surface, not in the deeps." Zohaqan generally preferred to anchor himself to the earth, blowing his storms inland to feed the Elon and drink of its flow. Yet every so often he had felt the tug of the ocean in his heart, like the moon drawing the tides. "Not even I know all the ocean's secrets, for its power is unfathomable. To churn the waters of a maelstrom, to dance with the sky as it gives birth to the tempest..." His essence resonated with the memory of ocean swells clashing in the wind. "I assure you, no mortal has ever experienced such ecstasy."

Nakis smiled at him with raised eyebrows. "I guess I'll have to take your word for it."

Soon enough, Zohaqan began to detect a hint of salt in the air. Even Nakis could sense it, for he breathed deeply and exhaled on a sigh of contentment. When at last the river widened to spill into the bay, it was sunset, and the ocean that stretched to the west was afire with streaks of gold, ruby, sapphire, tourmaline—Zohaqan heard Nakis gasp at the sight. "Is it not the most beautiful thing you have ever beheld, my Nakis?" Zohaqan asked. "Is the music of the waves not the most alluring song your mortal ears have ever heard?"

Nakis's eyes nearly squinted shut, the view too dazzling for him to take in. Zohaqan hovered between him and the sun to shield his sight. "Yes," said Nakis. "Beautiful." He stared at Zohaqan with wonder, his eyes glittering. "So beautiful."

The two skimmers whipped over the breakers, each chasing the other's tail. Nakis shrieked with laughter as he held fast onto Tamar's reins. The cries of gulls and crash of surf incited a fierce joy in Zohaqan, as boundless and unknowable as the emotion that mortals call love. He flew beside Nakis to keep pace with the wind. "Come!" he shouted over the surging tide. "Come! Dance with me!"

Nakis's answering grin was bright as the sun; his hair was wet with the salt spray, shining. Zohaqan kissed his Nakis in the sunlight and remembered the last time he had danced like this in the cradle of the waves, when he had joined with the sea and sky in their whirl of ecstatic energy, giving life to a storm. This was better.

* * *

They sailed by night, navigating by the light of the stars. The shore was never far from sight as they rounded the coastline. By day, Nakis and the skimmers would rest on rock-strewn beaches: wild country where no civilization had set foot in centuries. "I would have expected to see legions of the undead," Zohaqan remarked to Nakis one day a month or so into their sea voyage.

Nakis looked at him, startled. "Awakened? Here, in the sea?"

"Not from Palawa Joko's kingdom," Zohaqan clarified. "Servants of the Elder Dragon Zhaitan. But I do not sense it, when mere years ago these straits were rife with its corruption." If the dragon were sleeping, the slow pulse of its magic would still taint the air with shadows, but the miasma of death was blessedly absent. "Something has changed, I think."

"Zhaitan?" Nakis cocked his head. "Zhaitan's dead. They say King Joko killed it... almost three years ago, now."

"Impossible," Zohaqan scoffed, waving one of his hands to dismiss the notion. "The elder dragons are older even than your gods. How could a mortal king kill one?"

"Well, King Joko isn't mortal, is he? He's..." Nakis gestured to his own living body. "The Inevitable, and all that. He can't die. Doesn't that make him immortal?" He shrugged, lips twisting in a doubtful expression. "But maybe he isn't the one who killed Zhaitan. Wouldn't be the first thing he's lied about, that's for sure." 

Zohaqan considered Nakis's point. "If it's true that an Elder Dragon can be slain," he argued, "surely Palawa Joko will one day be destroyed also. Perhaps whoever slew the dragon could conquer the lich-king as well, for they must have great power—power beyond what Joko himself commands."

Nakis nodded, slow and thoughtful. "Perhaps. That's something to hope for... One day."

The ocean currents as they sailed further south were rich with life, teeming with plankton and fish. When they drew near to the Istani Isles, pods of dolphins swam to meet them, leaping over the waves. Nakis pointed and shouted in excitement when a whale breached the waters. Its back arched gracefully in contrast to its massive bulk, and the splash when it broke the surface on its descent flung droplets higher than Nakis was tall. Nakis had nothing to fear of it, for its kind fed on creatures smaller than his littlest fingernail—yet he seemed breathless with awe in its presence. Zohaqan conceded that it was indeed a majestic beast, though not as impressive as more ancient beings that once walked the land. Perhaps even larger behemoths dwelt somewhere in the depths, beyond what humans could fathom or sunlight could reach.

One night, they passed an isle that loomed dark on the western horizon. When the first beams of daylight lightened the sky, they sailed ashore there, and Nakis knelt toward the rising sun while Zohaqan tended to Rangi and Tamar. The skimmers settled to sleep in a tide pool under the cliff. Zohaqan lingered by them, watching Nakis recite his prayers. The murmur of the man's voice faded beneath the rush of the waves that lapped the shore, steady as breathing. Nakis turned and smiled at Zohaqan as the sun peeked above the ocean's surface.

"Look," he said, gazing out at the waves tinted in shades of rose and copper. "I think we've found our island paradise." He took Zohaqan's upper right hand and pulled him down to sit beside him, then leaned his head on Zohaqan's shoulder. His eyelashes dipped low over his cheeks, fluttering in drowsiness. Zohaqan held Nakis as the island came to life around them. Flowers opened to the sun and bees hummed among the new Zephyr blossoms.

"Yes," Zohaqan agreed, drawing Nakis down to lie against his chest and warm his heart. The morning flowed over the land like honey: a golden sweetness, fresh and alive with possibility. "Now, we are home."


	9. Claim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Despite how little we know of him, Nakis sprung fully formed into my mind as a pure, sweet cinnamon roll. I am 100% on board with this characterization.

After Nakis and Zohaqan had made the decision to settle down, their routine wasn't much different, at first, from how they'd made camp each day of their travels. On the second day, after Nakis had slept long and deeply to synchronize himself once more with the sun, they found a wide cave off the beach. It reminded Nakis of the corsairs' grottoes they had left behind them nearly two seasons ago. Sheltered from wind and rain, cool and dark, damp but roomy, the cave was more than hospitable for a storm djinn and a human accustomed to living rough. "This will do nicely," Nakis declared. He rested a palm against the cavern wall and regarded their new home in satisfaction. The sound of the waves was quieter in here, though still present. "What are you doing?" he asked Zohaqan, looking at him in bemusement as the djinn stacked driftwood on the far side of the cavern. Zohaqan had accumulated a sizeable pile of wood already, mostly of long, narrow pieces.

"I am making do," Zohaqan replied, with what sounded to Nakis like deliberate crypticity. It was rare for Zohaqan to speak in riddles, but Nakis supposed that every djinn probably liked to feel mysterious once in a while.

Nakis grinned at him. "Suit yourself. I think I'm going to go exploring some more."

"Be careful if you mean to go hunting in the forest above the cliffs," Zohaqan warned him. "While you were sleeping, I sensed some large predators up there. There's plenty of game to be found as well."

"Thanks, love." Nakis blew a kiss to him from the cave entrance. "I'll be back by sundown." He went to fetch Tamar, the more well-rested of the two skimmers today, from the tide pool where he had left them to graze. Even though the skimmers weren't as quick or graceful over land as over water, it would be faster to ride than to walk. Besides, if he managed to hunt any large game on this expedition, he supposed he would need Tamar's help to haul it back. He jumped astride her and set her gliding along what looked like a trail, wending up to the woods from the seashore. He wondered whether the trail was man-made, or if large beasts had cut their way through here in search of fresh water. Corsairs had once haunted these isles, plundering their way between Istan and the Dajkah coast. So far Nakis and Zohaqan had seen no other sign of civilized inhabitants on this island, though they hadn't yet ventured far from their beach to look for any.

The forest resounded with birdcalls, buzzing insects, rustling leaves, chittering rabbits; it felt endless and wild and alive. Nakis kept an eye out for sand lions, hyenas, or other creatures that might want to snack on a skimmer and her hapless rider, but didn't see anything threatening. He hopped to the ground in a clearing where there were marks in the dirt. He could see small footprints, probably belonging to rabbits or prairie dogs, and hoof-marks, indicating the presence of gazelles or deer. There was also something that gave Nakis pause when he spotted it: the imprint of a paw, larger by at least half than the prints of any predator he'd seen prowling the dunes of the mainland.

Nakis spread his senses into the ground. To his surprise, he could hear the heavy, loping gait of—something, nearby, no more than a hundred paces to the southwest. Something definitely larger than any sand lion or hyena. Maybe the creature to whom these tracks belonged? He crept around a copse of trees toward the source of the vibrations, leading Tamar behind him by her bridle. She was quiet, as though she too could sense the danger. The footfalls stopped abruptly and Nakis dropped to a crouch, straining to hear where their owner had gone. He picked up its resonance again some distance away. It was standing on two feet, but he couldn't tell what shape it was.

Nakis stopped breathing for a moment, biting back a curse. Of all the beasts that stood on two legs, he knew of only one kind that ran on four, and had paws, and was larger than a sand lion: charr, the hulking warriors of tooth and claw who had conquered the human nation of Ascalon. He'd never seen one, except in picture books. They had seemed almost mythical creatures to him, rather than real people; something scary that parents told their children about to keep them obediently in their beds at night. He remembered Zohaqan mentioning offhand that the humans of Kryta had made peace with the charr some time ago. It was strange, to think that charr and humans might live and work side by side somewhere in the world. They were a long way from Ascalon or Kryta, though. What would a charr be doing here?

Before he had decided whether it might be wiser for him to run away or approach the stranger, Nakis heard a growling voice from the shadows. "I see you, human. Don't come closer, unless you want a lightning bolt to the chest for your trouble."

Nakis stood up, raising his arms in a universal gesture of surrender. "I mean you no harm. I come in peace." He squinted between the trees, but could see no one.

"Peace," the voice repeated in gruff skepticism. "That's rich, coming from a human."

"It's the truth." Nakis carefully drew both wooden knives from his belt, one at a time, and tossed each one to the ground. "See, I'm unarmed. I'm not here to fight you." He swallowed. He didn't like his chances at defeating a charr in single combat, even with the aid of his channeling daggers. "Who are you? Will you come out to speak to me?"

The shadows shifted. The first impression Nakis got was of bright blue cat's eyes, not unlike the color of Zohaqan's storm magic, glaring suspiciously from a dark face. Horns straight as a gazelle's protruded from a mane of black fur, decorated with feathered ornaments. The fangs that extended down from the charr's muzzle were considerably less gazelle-like, as were the long claws and bristling tail that swept across the ground. From the charr's lithe, slender frame, as well as the even tufting of fur all along the length of the tail, Nakis determined that this was probably a female. Her clothing seemed to be made of animal hides and bones, as well as intricately woven netting and beads. Streaks of white striped the black fur of her chest and forelimbs. In her paws she held a bolt of storm energy, the same startling shade as her eyes and the magic that curled in tendrils around her shoulders and horns. She lowered her arms when Nakis made no move to threaten her. "I am Boticca of Atholma," she said. "You trespass on my people's hunting grounds, human."

"I'm Nakis." Nakis brought his palms together and bowed to her. "My partner and I are wayfarers from up north, from the Elon River—we only arrived on this island a couple of days ago. Um..." Boticca's expression remained impassive. "Obviously we didn't know that your people were here. Could we offer anything to you in apology?"

"That depends on what you want from us... Nakis," said Boticca. "You tread lightly, for a human. If what you say is true, perhaps you also walk nature's path, and are no enemy of ours."

Nakis glanced to the beads on his wrist. "By Kormir's truth, I swear I'm not your enemy, Boticca of Atholma." He inclined his head. "If I walk lightly through your forest, it's because Melandru guides my steps." Since Boticca had invoked the name of nature like a deity, Nakis hoped that she might recognize his own homage to the Goddess of Nature as an acknowledgement of the common ground between them.

Boticca's ears flicked, first the upper pair and then the lower. "I'm inclined to believe you," she said. Nakis exhaled the breath he'd been holding. "You and your mate pose no threat to us, regardless. Nature blessed this island with more than enough to provide for us all. I'll ask the elders, but I think they'll allow you use of our hunting grounds, if you abide by respect." She made a huffing sound that might have been a chuckle. "Humans don't eat much, anyway. The meat from a single rock gazelle would probably feed you and your mate for more than a month. Unless—do you have cubs? Little ones?"

Nakis quirked a smile. "No. It's just me and Zohaqan, and the mounts that brought us here." Nakis patted Tamar's head; she had remained calm throughout the exchange. "I'd be happy to offer your elders this skimmer as a gesture of our goodwill. If—um—if you'd let us stay here, on this side of the island? I promise, you won't even notice we're here."

"It's not for me to decide." Boticca nodded her head with a sniff in Tamar's direction. "That's a fine specimen, though, strong and healthy. She'd make a good addition to our breeding stock."

Nakis's grin widened. "So your people keep them, too? I'd never seen one in my life before last season."

"Hmm." Boticca's shoulders shifted, making the dangling ornaments on her mantle twist in the breeze. "Go back to your mate, and I'll go back to my village, and we'll discuss your offer of friendship."

"Sure—thank you," Nakis said, relieved and grateful that Boticca hadn't decided to fight him. Or worse, kill him without bothering to ask whether he was friend or foe. "Um. There's something else you should probably know about us. My partner, Zohaqan... he isn't human. He's a djinn."

Boticca's tail swished in contemplation for a few seconds. "I'm sure now that I was right to trust you, brother," she said. "A human who takes a djinn for his mate must live in harmony with nature, more so than most of your kind."

Nakis laughed at her assessment. "Maybe you're right."

Boticca saluted with a wave of her paw, stepping back into the trees. "We'll meet again. Nature favor you, brother."

He returned her gesture of farewell. "Thanks, Boticca. May Melandru guide you." She disappeared between the trees, and through the earth he felt her footfalls receding into the woods to the west.

Nakis retrieved his knives and mounted Tamar to explore more of the forest. He spotted further signs of intelligent life now that he knew to look for them: cloth markers tied to trees, wooden signposts inscribed with symbols, trails cut into the undergrowth. Nakis wondered how many people lived in Boticca's village, and how long they had lived here, so isolated from the rest of their race. He snared a brace of rabbits and roasted them over a fire for his lunch, figuring the charr wouldn't begrudge him such small game from their lands. He would leave the rock gazelles alone until he'd had the chance to negotiate with Boticca's elders.

When the sun was close to setting, he rode Tamar back down the trail to the beach and left her contentedly crunching on shellfish in the tidepool next to Rangi. Zohaqan was waiting for him outside the cave. "I'm glad you've returned safely. I have something to show you, after you've eaten your supper."

Nakis beamed and threaded his arm through one of Zohaqan's. "Ooh, am I going to see whatever it was that kept you busy this morning?"

The djinn's form was shimmering; he must have been in an effervescent mood. "Tell me of your exploration first. Did you find anything of interest?"

Nakis recounted his meeting with Boticca in the forest. "At first I thought she was going to skewer me on sight, but she warmed up to me real quick when I told her about you."

"Did she?" Zohaqan tilted his head. "Why would that be?"

"Her people seem to have a lot of respect for nature," Nakis mused. "She said I must be the same way, to have a djinn as my mate."

Zohaqan poked gently at his midriff. "Perhaps she was mistaken about that," he said archly. "It's not as though you treat me with any degree of reverence."

"That's not true!" Nakis protested. "I consider it my solemn duty to shower you with praise and adoration at all times, O most magnificent one." He puffed out his chest and waved his arms theatrically. "Behold, Zohaqan the Pulchritudinous, Bringer of Drizzle, Teller of Questionable Jokes—"

"Ah, you wound me with your scorn." Zohaqan clapped two hands to his own breast, miming a bolt to the heart. "Clearly you have no respect for me at all."

"You know I tease you only because I love you so much," Nakis crooned, nuzzling his shoulder. "Zohaqan, my precious precipitator—my handsome storm-blender—my snuggly thundercloud—"

"Such impudence," Zohaqan cried in mock outrage. "Your epithets are completely unbefitting of my dignity. No, come back here, my wicked Nakis, so I may silence you—" Nakis ducked under his arms and bounded toward a nearby tree, cackling. Zohaqan grappled him to the ground and tickled him in reproach, worming too-clever fingers under Nakis's arms and down his sides, until Nakis was laughing so hard that tears streamed from his eyes.

"All right, all right, enough," Nakis wheezed. Zohaqan relented, pressing a fond kiss to his cheek as they settled against the tree trunk. "I'll just have to find some other medium to express my love, if you don't like my pet names. How about a visual?" With a conjured flame that he concentrated on the tip of his index finger, Nakis traced a four-armed silhouette onto the bark beside them. The figure's shoulders came out a little lumpier than he'd intended, though the proportions seemed mostly right. He doodled a smaller humanoid shape off one side in the suggestion of a hand-holding pose. Then he signed the drawing with the letters _Z+N_ , and looped a heart around the inscription with two broad strokes.

Zohaqan leaned his head on Nakis's shoulder to admire his handiwork. "Your artistic skills have much improved since your first forays into sculpture."

"It is a good likeness, isn't it?" Nakis turned his head to kiss Zohaqan's face. "There, I've claimed our territory. Now those charr will have to let us stay."

They prepared a meal in the comfortable ease of established routine: Nakis tended the fire and pared root vegetables, while Zohaqan collected oils, salts, and seasonings. "You look tired," Nakis commented in concern when he had finished eating his soup. "How long were you working on that mysterious project of yours today?"

"I wanted to finish it before you returned," Zohaqan said. "The effort will have been worth it, if you are pleased with what I've made."

Nakis covered his eyes and let Zohaqan lead him into their cave, using his earth-sense to avoid stumbling. He smelled a delicious mixture of fresh, earthy scents as they neared the far wall of the cavern. When he opened his eyes, he had to blink several times to take in the sight that awaited him. A broad archway woven of sticks framed a nest of springy vines, large enough for Nakis to lie on spread-eagled, lined with moss and flower petals. Blossoms, feathers, and seashells hung in artful patterns from the branches overhead, glowing with foxfire. "A bower," he said in wonder. "You built a bower for me, just like you said—"

"I did promise fragrant palm-boughs," Zohaqan interjected, "but had to make do with what materials were at hand." His eyes twinkled. "I trust you find it satisfactory?"

Nakis climbed up onto the bed and sank into the soft vines and petals. "It's lovely. You're lovely." He spread his arms with a smile. "Come on, join me? It'll be even more comfortable with you in it." It was, indeed. Nakis fell asleep with Zohaqan's hands stroking his back and carding through his hair.

He awoke when it was still night. Rubbing his eyes, he rolled over to reach for Zohaqan, but the djinn wasn't in the bed with him. Instead, there was a note written in glowing letters on a slab of rock: _I hope you slept well, my darling. I'm more tired than I thought, so I am going up the cliff to call a storm. I'll meet you on the shore at sunrise._

Outside the cave, it was raining. Thunder rolled over the sound of the surf. Nakis got up, lit a fire in his hand to illuminate the ground, and crept out of the cave to ascend the path to the top of the bluffs. When he reached the summit, he put out his flame and looked up, searching for Zohaqan. Nakis spotted him as a blue streak darting between the sheets of rain, whirling through the air almost faster than Nakis's eyes could track. Zohaqan paused in his flight, hovering, face upturned to the rainfall. He swayed and lifted his arms as though conducting the music of the skies.

Outlined in arcing energy and crowned in thunderclouds, his eyes flashing, the djinn was more magnificent than Nakis had ever seen him: here was the Spirit of the Storm, breathtaking and terrifying in his beauty. Nakis had heard such fearsome splendor described before in paeans to Balthazar, god of fire and war, which Elonian villagers of the old faith chanted with reverence at the turning of the Phoenix solstice. _You are beautiful, beloved,_ went one such song. _Majestic, as the towers of a city... Terrible, as an army with banners flying; Turn your eyes from me, for they overpower me._ The lightning that Zohaqan held in his hands illuminated his form in stark relief against the clouded sky.

Nakis's mouth ran dry; he licked his lips. Water wouldn't do anything to slake this thirst, he knew. He wanted Zohaqan in his mouth, on his tongue—needed Zohaqan to envelop him in sweet coldness, to consume and fill him at once, to quench the embers under his skin. Suddenly it was intolerable to Nakis that he stood so far away; unbearable, that Zohaqan wasn't touching him right now. He called out to him hoarsely. Though the wind snatched Nakis's words away, Zohaqan must have heard, for he turned to face him.

The rain stopped. The lightning in Zohaqan's hands flickered and shrank as he floated back to the ground. "My Nakis?" The djinn blew a breeze to lift Nakis's hair from his brow, making him shiver, but not from the cold. "I must have woken you. I'm sorry."

Nakis swallowed, mostly to keep his jaw from hanging open. He cleared his throat. "I wasn't asleep anyway," he said. "I saw your note, and came up here to look, and—um—wow." He ran a hand through his hair, laughing nervously. "Huh. I—I guess I've never seen you as the Spirit of the Storm before."

Zohaqan crossed two of his arms. If it was possible, he looked even more striking; his form was resplendent, tall and glittering with ice crystals. "You know what I am," the djinn said. Nakis had thought that he'd known, but perhaps he could never truly understand.

"I know what you can do," he agreed. "I've sparred with you, I've seen you call the rains. But—watching you, in your full power, commanding a storm like that... that was... damn." His face going hot with self-consciousness, Nakis stripped off his clothes and his prayer beads, leaving them in a jumble at his feet. Zohaqan's eyes followed his movements—surely he couldn't mistake what Nakis desired from him. Nakis's heart thumped loud; he wondered whether Zohaqan could hear it, too. The sea breeze prickled against his bare skin. "Come here. Please," he managed to say at last.

Zohaqan remained where he was, though his form had a sharpness to the edges that Nakis had come to associate with the times when they were intimate. His eyes burned blue as the heart of a flame. "On nights such as these," he began speaking quietly, "when the storm sings to me, my temper waxes high." His voice had the same rich timbre as always, but it was lower, deeper than normal. "Not in anger, exactly. It's—a sort of charge, like drawing from a vast wellspring of energy." He paused. "I am... not likely to be especially gentle, at this moment," he admitted. "I wouldn't wish to cause you harm."

Nakis let the unsteadiness in his legs drop him to his knees. The damp stone bit into his skin, grounding him in sensation while the rest of his body trembled, starved for contact. "You won't hurt me," he said. "I know you won't. And I want you, right now. I want you to have me like—" He swallowed. "Like you're not afraid you're going to break me." He said the words in a rush before he could have any second thoughts about expressing them.

Zohaqan floated forward until his face was a fingersbreadth away from Nakis's, not quite close enough to kiss him. He reached down with two hands toward Nakis's wrists and clutched them in a hold that tightened when Nakis gasped. "Is this what you mean?" Nakis nodded, dizzy with the arousal that spiked in his blood. Another of Zohaqan's hands twined into Nakis's hair, pulling his head back to bare his neck. Nakis's nerves tingled with a frisson of energy—perhaps that was the charge that Zohaqan had mentioned. "It excites you... to be under my power this way?"

"Yes," Nakis moaned. "Oh, yes—" Zohaqan's fourth hand shoved at Nakis's chest, toppling him backwards and pinning him against the air. Nakis thrilled at the feeling of exposure when his body tried to curl inward and met with immovable resistance. The djinn's form was perfectly still, holding him in place with no evidence of effort. Nakis fought to keep his eyes on Zohaqan's face instead of allowing them to roll back into his head. The cool air felt soothing on his heated skin; he wondered if it was Zohaqan caressing him with a breeze, or if it was merely the wind's own playfulness.

Zohaqan's misgivings seemed to have dissolved with Nakis's obvious show of eagerness. "If you're sure that this is what you want..."

"Yes," Nakis responded immediately, "yes, gods, please, Zohaqan—" Nakis wasn't sure what he was begging for, exactly, but he knew he wanted more.

Zohaqan's voice when he spoke next was smooth and dark as honey. "At any time, if you wish for me to stop," he murmured into Nakis's ear, "ask for water, and I'll release you." His eyes locked onto Nakis's gaze. "Do you understand?"

Nakis couldn't move his head to nod. He swallowed thickly. "Water. Got it." The breath that he dragged into his lungs lifted Zohaqan's hand on his chest; Zohaqan maintained a steady pressure. The cool fingers began drawing downwards at an excruciatingly slow pace, raising gooseflesh behind them. "Thought you weren't going to be gentle," Nakis whispered. If he'd allowed his voice through, it might have come out as a whine.

"Oh, I won't be." The fingers traced over his breastbone and ribs, pausing to tease at the sensitive points whenever Nakis's breathing hitched. "I will be merciless." Zohaqan's hands at his wrists held Nakis fast, while the hand in his hair tugged sharply, making him cry out at the jolt that shot from his scalp to his groin. "Unless you ask for water."

Nakis's hips strained upward, seeking contact; Zohaqan's form billowed back to keep his distance from where Nakis wanted him most. That hand—Nakis's eyes followed it in its course over his skin, icy blue against coffee-brown. It trailed further down, dipping into his navel to send a shiver through his body that left him gasping. Lower—down the crease of his thigh, so close to where he needed—skimming around, back, away. "Please," Nakis groaned, "please..."

Zohaqan's hand in his hair relaxed its hold, lingering at the base of his skull before reaching down to nudge at his knee. On instinct, Nakis clamped his legs together; in response, Zohaqan spread them apart with an inexorable grip, using both of his lower hands. Nakis writhed against the feeling of restraint, his vision fuzzing. "Do you need water?" Zohaqan purred.

"Need you," Nakis rasped. "Need you to touch me—" His struggling had no effect on Zohaqan's hold over him, but at his words the djinn's eyes blazed brighter. Zohaqan let go of Nakis's hands to press against his collarbones. When Nakis reached for Zohaqan's head to haul him in for a kiss, Zohaqan held firm. One arm whipped up to catch Nakis's wrists again, while the one at his clavicle kept him immobilized, making Nakis's neck go taut with tension that brought his lips no closer to their goal. Nakis gritted his teeth. "Stop teasing me."

"I do not tease." Zohaqan twisted Nakis's arms around with one hand and splayed his legs with a vise grip at each knee, curving his body like a bow-stave. The fingers of the fourth hand traced along Nakis's inner thigh, paused at the juncture of his legs, then stroked back, across tender and oversensitized skin. "I am taking what I want from you." Nakis shuddered with delicious frustration. "You are so warm," Zohaqan went on in a murmur, "so beautiful like this." He caressed further back, circling around the most intimate part of Nakis's body. "Your breath when I do this—" the tip of one finger pushed just inside, and Nakis sobbed at the slick perfection of it— "is delectable." Zohaqan's finger lengthened, expanded; touched something in Nakis that made lightning convulse up his spine, whiting out his vision for a second. "I would drink of your sighs for a time... I think I'll take as long as I see fit, until I am satisfied."

Nakis's blood pounded in his ears and his extremities. He choked on a shout when the edge of Zohaqan's hand hit that same spot inside him twice, thrice more, then stopped. The muscles of Nakis's arms and legs gave a twinge of protest as he flailed in his desperation to touch Zohaqan, himself, the ground—anything to anchor him in this delirious torment. "Stop," he panted. "Don't—I can't—"

Zohaqan leaned his head over Nakis's. "Say the word, and I'll desist." Nakis knew with absolute certainty that Zohaqan would, if he said it. Nakis opened his mouth, catching his breath, and closed it again, pressing his lips together. Zohaqan's eyes flickered, as though in acknowledgement. The djinn released one of Nakis's knees to bring a hand to his lips as the finger inside him stroked again in a long, slow glide. Nakis sucked Zohaqan's fingers into his mouth and let his eyes slide shut; the taste and fullness was exquisite, cool and wet against his tongue. The djinn's hand thrust under him in a tantalizing, staccato almost-rhythm—not enough. Not enough. Nakis whimpered around his mouthful.

He didn't know how long Zohaqan held him like that, suspended in vertiginous anticipation, winding him tighter and tighter. It might have been a span of heartbeats; it might have been hours. Nakis drifted in a haze of half-fulfilled lust, vision swimming in and out of focus whenever he opened his eyes. When Zohaqan drew his fingers out from Nakis's mouth, pulling free of his lips, Nakis swallowed shakily. "Nn," he said, then took a deep breath and tried again. "N—Need—I need—"

"Yes, love?" The hand that had been in his mouth grazed Nakis's cheek, in tender contrast to the unrelenting press and stretch of Zohaqan's fingers that wrung pleasure from his body elsewhere. "What do you need?"

Nakis pushed his cheek against the cool rigidity of Zohaqan's hand. "Need more of you," he pleaded, gasping, "harder, more, oh, please, Zohaqan—"

Before Nakis finished saying the djinn's name, Zohaqan withdrew his fingers from Nakis's cheek to reach downward, wrapping them around where he had left Nakis untouched and wanting until now. He pressed a kiss to the pulse at Nakis's neck. "I couldn't deny you anything, my Nakis," Zohaqan rumbled against his throat, "when you beg for it so sweetly."

"Zohaqan—oh—" Nakis ended his utterance on a wordless howl when the hand that enclosed his flesh began to move over the length of him, rough and slow and sublime. "Zohaqan—!"

His cries may well have been loud enough to frighten any local sea-birds from their roosts. He didn't remember to ask Zohaqan about it, after, when the djinn cleansed his skin with fresh rainwater and kissed him where their joining had left bruises, soothing the love-bites with a healing mist. Nakis was already sleeping by the time Zohaqan dressed him, carried him to bed, and laid him down in the nest of vine and blossom, to dream of the scent of lilies and the song of the waves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love and awe certainly overlap in the words of the _Shir ha-Shirim_ (Song of Songs) 6:4-5, which I borrowed here. I recommend listening to Ola Gjeilo's stirring setting of the same text in Latin, ["Northern Lights,"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS_zaEJo7fE) titled as such because he composed it in tribute to the terrible beauty of the _aurora borealis_.
> 
> Also, fact: the line that comes before that, 6:3 _ani l'dodi v'dodi li; haro'eh ba-shoshanim_ ("I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine; he grazes among the lilies") is one of my favorite lines of poetry in any language, and is part of the artwork on my own marriage contract. That had nothing to do with the incorporation of lilies into my imagining of Nakis and Zohaqan's story, but wouldn't it be perfect if it did?


	10. Nature's Path

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every time I try to start building up to the denouement of their tale, I can't get this sweet lil' cinnamon bun and his floaty four-armed friend to stop being disgustingly adorable together long enough to progress any sort of plot. Please send help.

Nakis was absent from their cave this morning, gone to visit his friends. In the months since they had made this isle their home, Zohaqan had thought it prudent to encourage Nakis's drive for social interaction that drew him to the village of charr on the other side of the island, even if Zohaqan did not wish to pursue closer ties with them himself. All mortals, Zohaqan knew, needed the companionship of their own kind to survive. There were no other humans here for Nakis to befriend, but perhaps Nakis was right when he had said that the differences that separated him from the charr were not so numerous as the ways in which they were the same. "After all," he told Zohaqan, "Boticca's people left their homeland because they wanted to live in peace. I'm not going to blame them for what their ancestors might have done to my ancestors, when they're willing to extend me the same courtesy."

"You would be able to trust them no more or less even if they were human like you," Zohaqan mused. "Mortals form alliances and make enemies of one another with little regard for kinship, if it suits them."

Nakis nodded. "It makes me think about other races—like the centaurs. They speak the same language as us, use the same magic, but we've always been at war with them, just like the charr. I wonder... Do all of them hate humans, because our people killed so many of theirs? Or are there centaurs who sought a different path, a path of peace, like the Olmakhan did?"

"I know not," Zohaqan said. "It is possible. You are not the first mortal to live in unity with those who are not of your kind, my Nakis, nor shall you be the last." He held Nakis's chin in a caress. "Your tolerance of the stranger is a quality that I greatly admire in you."

"I should hope so," Nakis rejoined with a grin, "since you're pretty strange, and I tolerate you."

"Only tolerate?" huffed Zohaqan. "How low I have sunk in your estimation."

Nakis bumped his nose into the side of Zohaqan's face. "By 'tolerate' I meant 'adore,' of course," he said, nuzzling Zohaqan with every emphasized word, "and by 'strange,' I meant 'amazing, brilliant, captivating, devastatingly attractive'—"

"I tolerate you too, my strange Nakis," Zohaqan murmured, pecking him on the lips. Nakis hummed happily and stole two more kisses before turning to more practical matters.

"It's market day today," Nakis said. "You sure you don't want to come with me this time? Mingle with the locals? They're all curious about you, you know."

Zohaqan hesitated. "I... wouldn't want to hinder your enjoyment of spending time with your companions." He did not desire to be the object of strange mortals' curiosity, either, but he chose not to voice this objection. "Enjoy yourself at the market," he bade Nakis. "Perhaps I'll see you there. If not, you will tell me of your doings when you return."

Nakis had waved a cheery goodbye and set out for the village shortly after sunrise, and it was nearly noon now. Zohaqan was still uncertain whether he wanted to join Nakis at the market today. On the one hand, he would rather be near to his Nakis than apart from him, but on another hand, he did not wish to distract Nakis from associating with fellow mortals. On the third hand, he was reluctant to subject himself to the curious stares and impertinent questions of said mortals. On the fourth hand, he still had his own amount of curiosity about the people who had earned Nakis's friendship and regard—for they were sure to be interesting, or at least diverting enough to merit a cursory observation. His decision was clear, then: he would go to the village to find and watch over Nakis, and need not consort with any others.

As the crow—or djinn—flies, the village of Atholma was much closer to their cave than the length of the meandering paths through the cliffs that Nakis would have taken. Zohaqan shrouded himself in a cloud of mist to approach the village from above. He cast his glance around to search for Nakis, but didn't see him. Two charr, a male and a female, were nattering to one another some distance away. Zohaqan paid little heed to their conversation until he realized the topic about which they were speaking. "What do you think about that human and his pet djinn living on the far side of the hunting grounds?" the female was saying.

The male harrumphed in response. "I think you've got it backwards. It must be the djinn who's keeping the human as a pet."

"That's not what I heard," she insisted. "Boticca said that Nakis told her he and Zohaqan were partners—mates."

"No way," the male scoffed. "You must be misunderstanding human slang. Can djinn even—?"

"Stop right there," the female cut him off with a growl, pawing at her muzzle in a gesture of distaste. "I don't want to think about it. I mean, Nakis seems friendly enough, but isn't it odd that he's all alone? Don't humans usually live and travel in packs?"

"Beats me. Maybe the djinn ensorcelled him," the male grunted with a shrug of his sloping shoulders. "I doubt he's a spy for some looming human invasion force, if that's what you're worried about."

"You're right, he seems more adept with a kithara than a sword—not a bad musician, for a human. He's sweet with the cubs, too. And Boticca does seem to trust him..."

"Eh, I don't care what she says—a human mating with a djinn ain't natural," the male said, shaking out his mane with an exaggerated shudder. "I'd bet that Nakis is either soft in the head, or a captive. Maybe both. I guess there's no harm in it anyway, as long as Zohaqan doesn't try any funny business with the rest of us."

"Mm-hmm," the female intoned in agreement. "We've had more rain than usual this growing season. Nice not to worry about a drought this year."

"I think that might be because of Zohaqan, actually," said the male with a click of his claws. "Isn't he a water djinn? A stormcaller? That must be why the elders are letting him and his pet human stick around." He bared his fangs in a grin. "Maybe he's _real_ good at watering plants, if you get what I'm saying. And a bit of plowing while he's at it—"

"Ugh, shut up," the female spoke over him, rolling her eyes. "You're disgusting."

"Nature works in strange ways." Their banter faded out of hearing as Zohaqan flew away, blowing a chill wind behind him. The mortals' opinions of him didn't matter a whit, but he felt irritation on Nakis's behalf. How dared they impugn his Nakis with their crass remarks, when Nakis had been only generous and courteous towards them, and they had done precious little to earn his regard in return? They knew nothing of Nakis's kind and gentle soul, and they knew nothing of Zohaqan; more was the pity.

He alighted on a cliff next to a gulls' nest, hearing the shrieks of charr cubs' laughter from the beach below. Where there was laughter, he thought, Nakis was likely to be nearby. His surmise proved correct when Nakis's voice floated up above the clamor, a tone of mild reproof silencing the younglings' chatter. "Do you want to hear a song or not?"

"Yes, yes! Please sing us a human song!" chorused the cubs. Zohaqan stretched out his form to lie prone on the rocks, resting his head on two of his hands to watch the gaggle of children crowd around Nakis. The man was holding a stringed instrument of some kind, obviously made for charr paws rather than slender human hands, but he plucked the strings experimentally and seemed satisfied with the arpeggiated chords that his fingers were able to coax forth. He tapped one of his feet in rhythm and knocked his fingers against the wood of the instrument on each downbeat.

"This song has a lot of verses, but I think you can pick up the tune and join me in the refrain," Nakis said. "How does that sound?" At the cubs' nodding and vocal encouragements, he began to sing. The children fell silent to listen, enraptured as Zohaqan was from his unseen vantage point. He allowed the melodious notes in Nakis's strong and steady tenor to waft over him and soothe his spirit.

" _A young man stands and ponders deep,_  
_He worries all night, unable to sleep._  
_'Whom shall I wed? How shall I decide_  
_Which girl is worthy of being my bride?'_

"Now this part is the chorus," Nakis continued, vamping the chord of the previous measure before lifting his voice in the refrain.

" _Strum, troubadour, strum, troubadour, play on your fiddle,_  
_Answer me this, answer me this, solve me a riddle._  
_Sing us a tale now, pass round the ale now,_  
_Make merry music till dawn lights the sky._

" _By morning, the boy knows just what he'll do._  
_'Maiden, I'd ask these questions of you:_  
_What can flourish, grow without rain?_  
_What can smolder, burn without flame?'_

"What do you think are the answers?" he prompted the cubs, repeating the same sequence of notes for several bars to wait for their response. "Any guesses?"

"A tree?"

"No, dummy, trees need rain too—"

"Maybe it's a fish, they can grow real big. Kel showed me one last week that was _this_ long—"

"The sun burns, right?"

"But the sun's made of fire. That's not it."

"I give up! What's the answer, Nakis? Tell us, please please please—"

"All right, you'll find out in a moment," he interrupted them with an indulgent smile. "Let's all sing the chorus again. Do you remember the words?" The cubs' piping treble voices joined Nakis's, only stumbling on some of the syllables. Clearly they were all accustomed to learning songs by ear. "That was great," Nakis praised them. His voice took on a softer quality and his smile turned coy as he assumed the role of the other character in the song for the next verse.

" _'Every fool knows,' the maiden replies,_  
_Lovely with wisdom that shines in her eyes,_  
_'The stones of the earth can grow without rain;_  
_A heart that holds courage can burn without flame.'_ "

"That doesn't make any sense," whined one of the cubs. "Rocks don't grow!"

"But there always seems to be more of them than before," countered another. "That's like how mushrooms grow."

"You're right," Nakis said to her with a pleased smile. He played the pickup to the chorus and the cubs all joined in, two of them harmonizing in an improvised descant. Nakis began the next stanza.

" _'What's more fragile than a shell?_  
_What runs deeper than a well?_  
_What is swift as lightning's flash?_  
_What is bitter and colder than ash?'_ "

The cubs called out more guesses before they all sang the refrain again. Nakis only raised his eyebrows to acknowledge them in lieu of confirming or denying their answers, until he gave the reply in the verse that followed.

" _'Beauty's more fragile than a shell;_  
_The truth runs deeper than a well;_  
_A gale is swift as lightning's flash;_  
_The grave is bitter and colder than ash.'_ "

Everyone sang the chorus twice more, then Nakis finished the song with a gentle strike of his hand across the strings to silence their vibrations. "Well, what do you think?"

"I think the song's story is dumb," declared one cub, with the blunt honesty that often characterized mortal younglings' stated opinions. "There's more than one answer to all the questions. How does he know if the girl is right?"

"And it doesn't even say if they get married at the end," complained the youngest cub.

"I like it. It's pretty," said one of the females who had added a pleasing harmony on the song's chorus. The other children agreed with her expressed sentiment, even those who thought the lyrical content to be lacking in either logic or a satisfactory conclusion.

"The six questions refer to the Six Gods," Nakis explained. "Melandru, Balthazar, Lyssa, Kormir, Dwayna, and Grenth. The girl's answers showed the boy that she's a devout person as well as being smart, see? That's what makes her a good choice for him."

"Did the boy even know the answers before he asked her?" another cub inquired. "He just decided to pester her with a bunch of dumb questions. Maybe she doesn't want to marry him, because he's annoying. And how would she know if _he's_ smart enough for _her?_ "

"That's a good point," laughed Nakis. "Maybe that's why the ending of the song doesn't say what happens."

Zohaqan regarded the sparkle in Nakis's eyes, the timbre of his easy laughter, the warmth that he bestowed on the younglings with a smile or a word. He looked happy, in a way that was not quite like any other happiness that Zohaqan had beheld in him before. This scene of domesticity and cheer held the glimmer of something unknown to Zohaqan, something uniquely mortal, precious and fleeting: an elder caring for the young. _Family._ Zohaqan knew that if he were to fly down to greet his Nakis now, infringing on this fragile tableau, the moment would collapse on itself, like a bubble of molten glass. He would come back later. With a last glance below, Zohaqan drifted up to the clouds and allowed the breezes to carry him southward, over the sea.

An odd shape on the horizon captured his attention. The strait of clear, cerulean water that separated this isle from its neighbor to the south had become somewhat familiar to him these past few months, and he knew the island across the water had no mountains or other prominent features. As far as he was aware, the charr had not built a settlement there. Yet it seemed that someone was building something there now. The lines of the structure that came into Zohaqan's view were jagged and dark, and—most curiously—did not intersect the ground below. A metallic tang sullied the waters where the land and ocean touched, and the hum of magic permeated the air.

What artifice was this? It was not the work of djinn, Zohaqan was certain. Djinn would not be so sloppy in their craft as to pollute the surrounding sea with foreign elements. The only mortals to accomplish such heights of magical architecture were perhaps the asura, whom Zohaqan knew by reputation if not by personal acquaintance. This new edifice could conceivably be the start of an asuran colony or outpost. Had they chosen this place in appreciation of its natural beauty, Zohaqan wondered, or to harvest its abundant resources? Were they here because of—or in spite of—the presence of the charr, or for some other reason entirely? It was pointless to speculate without further knowledge of their intentions. Zohaqan began making his way back to the village.

Below him, Zohaqan noticed the sun glinting off a mineral deposit in the rocky shallows, striking his gaze in a prismatic display of color and shadow. Curling himself down into the water to look at it more closely, he reached out to split off a projecting piece from the crystal lattice. It broke away with a satisfying crack at a touch of lightning from his hand. He smoothed away the salt and impurities from its facets, admiring its symmetrical planes and brilliant aquamarine hue. Fluorspar, he thought its mortal name was. Known for its pleasing shape and magical absorption properties, this appealing blend of earth essences held allure for mortals as well as djinn. Zohaqan toyed with the fluorspar crystal idly as he scanned the village square for a smaller human shape among the throng.

He spotted his Nakis leaning over the front of a market stall, standing on tiptoe to rest his arms on the surface that would be only waist-high to a charr. The stringed instrument Zohaqan had seen him playing before lay on the wooden planks beside him. "Thanks for letting me borrow your kithara again," he was saying to the stall's proprietor, a male charr with wide horns and brindled fur.

"Of course," the charr said. "You're welcome to it any time. The children weren't any trouble, I hope?"

"Sweet as angels," Nakis assured him with a smile. "They remind me of my nieces and nephews. I used to—" He paused, his mouth tightening. A moment later his expression cleared and he waved his hand as though to brush away an insect, or an unwelcome thought. "Anyway, they're great kids. How are the skimmers doing?"

The charr bobbed his head. "'Bout as well as you'd expect. Olwyn's just learning to ride, did I tell you? He keeps asking to be in the races, but Marlen wants him to get some more experience first."

"I don't think Rangi's going to be winning him any races," Nakis said with a laugh. "I'm getting hungry—think I'll head to the docks now to see what the catch of the day is. Make sure to tell Ifan I want that marinade recipe of hers, will you?"

"Right, right. Tell your, uh—tell Zohaqan we'd like to meet him sometime."

"Sure. Oh, Zohaqan!" Nakis turned and exclaimed in surprise when he saw Zohaqan hovering nearby. He skipped toward him, beaming, and enfolded him in a hug. "I was just going to get some lunch. Want to join me?"

"I wished only to see that you are well," Zohaqan said, bending to kiss the top of Nakis's head. He halted when he felt the gazes of passing charr snag on him and Nakis, heard fragments of their whispers.

"Grandmother, is that—"

"Don't stare, Nima."

"Didn't think he'd deign to show himself."

"Nature keep us, you don't think he's going to mess with the weather, do you? It was such a nice day..."

Nakis pulled him back to the market stall, looking up at him with warmth lighting his brown eyes. "Come on, I want to introduce you to my friend—this is Delyth. Delyth, this is Zohaqan."

"Nature favor you," Delyth said in greeting with a respectful nod.

Zohaqan held onto Nakis's arm as he peered at Delyth's wares. "These items exhibit a high level of skill and artistry for mortal creations."

"Thank you," the charr said gruffly. "We call them windcatchers. I like to make use of any nice-looking feathers or bits and bobs that blow my way."

Zohaqan rattled the windcatchers with a breeze, making them chime and jangle. "They are pleasing. What would you accept as payment for one?"

"Well—we usually deal in coin, but I'd be willing to barter, if you have something to trade."

"Would this suffice?" Zohaqan held out the chunk of fluorspar crystal in his palm. Delyth squinted at it appraisingly and nodded.

"Sure, I can make use of that. Take your pick, then." Zohaqan selected a windcatcher with black, silky feathers that reminded him of Nakis's hair.

"Where did you find that?" Nakis asked, glancing with interest at the crystal that Zohaqan dropped into Delyth's paw in exchange for his chosen prize. "I don't think I've ever seen a stone like that before."

"I harvested it from an undersea outcrop not far from the shore," said Zohaqan. "It's an uncommon compound, usually only found in areas with a high concentration of ambient magic. The presence of volatile elemental energies trapped within the earth essence is what gives it its extraordinary color."

"Huh, I didn't know that," Delyth remarked. "Ethall makes jewelry out of stones like these. She finds them on the beach sometimes." He tapped the crystal gently with the tip of one claw. "Thanks for this, Zohaqan. It'll make a good counterweight for a piece I have in mind."

"You are most welcome. It's my pleasure to do business with a friend of Nakis."

"Come on, let's go to the docks now, I'm famished." Nakis nudged Zohaqan with his hip in a casually affectionate gesture, which Zohaqan found did much to loosen the knot of lingering disquietude that had tangled in his heart since this morning. "See you around, Delyth."

If other charr looked askance at his and Nakis's joined hands, or the way their bodies angled comfortably toward one another as they strolled along the docks, Zohaqan was too wrapped up in Nakis's smile to mind overmuch. "I heard you singing that riddle-song to the charr younglings."

"Oh, did you like it?" Nakis's eyes twinkled with amusement. "I'm fond of that one. It was usually safe to sing it out in the open, because it doesn't mention the Six by name. You know," he continued with an afterthought, "when I was little, I missed the point of the song entirely."

Imagining Nakis as a child was a peculiar notion indeed. A pang of dissonance twisted in Zohaqan's heart, tender and wistful, like nostalgia for something he had never seen. "What lesson did you glean from it, in your youth?"

Nakis leaned close and lowered his voice as though divulging a secret. "That asking riddles is how you tell someone you like them."

Zohaqan cocked his head to one side. "Isn't it?"

A snort of surprised laughter from Nakis drew furtive, inquisitive looks from several passersby. "Are you telling me," Nakis crowed, "when you asked me that riddle about fireflies the day after we first met—you were—"

"Making friendly overtures to you, of course." Zohaqan hummed. "Why do you think djinn collect so many riddles?" Nakis's thigh-slapping guffaws in response to this question perplexed Zohaqan as much as it seemed to confuse the other marketgoers, who stopped to watch the human doubled over in throes of hilarity, clearly wondering what his djinn companion had said that the man found so amusing.

* * *

After that day, Zohaqan forgot altogether about the building he had witnessed taking shape on the island to the south. The seasons of the Scion and the Colossus all too soon gave way to the soft Zephyr rains that swept over the isles once more. Only then was Zohaqan to receive a reminder of that day's discovery, in the form of unexpected visitors to his and Nakis's stretch of the shore. A clatter sounded from the garden as Nakis dropped the trowel he was holding and yelled out a curse. "Dwayna preserve us—what is that thing?"

Anxious at the note of fright in Nakis's voice, Zohaqan flew down from where he had been resting, listening to the trilling calls of nesting songbirds in the treetops above their cave. He quickly gathered frost between his hands as he searched for the source of Nakis's alarm. Nakis always carried his channeling daggers with him in case of encountering predators, though he was usually one to keep a cool head in the face of danger, and wouldn't have exhibited such fear when confronted with a mere sand lion or scarab, or even a hydra. "What's the matter, my Nakis? Are you under attack?"

"I'm all right," Nakis assured him. "Just startled." He swallowed and inhaled a steadying breath through his nose, then brandished one wooden knife in the direction of the beach. "Do you see that? I really don't like the look of... whatever that is."

A mechanical beast of some kind was floating along the shore. It reeked of metallic fumes and thrummed with tethered magic that glowed from its underside and buoyed it above the rocks. Zohaqan could not see inside it, but suspected it to be a work of asuran engineering. The machine hovered over the gravel like a perverse caricature of a skimmer or a sand shark, metal arms jutting bizarrely from its flanks to stabilize it as it touched down. Zohaqan saw Nakis clench his hands more tightly around his weapons when a hatch in the side of the beast opened with a hiss of steam and three small bipedal creatures leapt out of it. They sported sleek black uniforms and helmets, which did little to disguise their broad grayish-dun faces, bulging eyes, and flapping ears.

"Get those scanners ready," one of them barked. "With any luck we'll get the overseer her samples _before_ the end of my shift this time. Hop to it, you lazy grubs—I'm not getting any younger here." The other two creatures grumbled their acquiescence. The curious magical devices that they held in their clawed, pudgy hands whirred to life, sweeping narrow beams of red light across the ground.

"What are they?" Nakis asked Zohaqan under his breath. "I mean... _who_ are they?"

"Asura," said Zohaqan. "A race of accomplished magical scholars and artisans. They once lived underground, until the Elder Dragon Primordus stirred from slumber and drove them from their homes over two and a half centuries ago."

"What do you think they're doing here?"

The device in one asura's hand emitted a harsh noise as she pointed it straight toward them. "I'm picking up a couple of interesting readings in the woods over there," she said to the two others. "Classification: one djinn and one adult human."

"A djinn? That sounds promising," the leader said, grinning to display her sharp, pointed teeth. "Let's check them out."

Nakis stepped out from the shelter of the trees, holding his daggers loosely at his sides. "Ahai. I'm Nakis. May I ask what you're—ow!" He recoiled as a whipcord of energy zapped him in the wrist, making him stumble and drop one of his knives. "What do you think you're doing?"

Zohaqan flung three fistfuls of ice at the asura, waving his fourth hand to repair the burn on Nakis's skin. "If you harm him again," he said calmly to the assailants, "I will not hesitate to destroy you." He advanced toward them, shielding Nakis behind him. "State your intentions peacefully, or leave."

"Oof, that one packs a punch," mumbled one asura, brushing icicles from the front of his uniform. "The overseer will be pleased."

"Hey! We're talking to you!" Nakis had regained his feet and lowered both his daggers at the asura who had shot him. Flames sputtered from the tips of the wooden blades. "I don't want to hurt you, but if you don't tell us what you're—"

"Don't engage with it," the asura leader ordered. "Subdue the djinn first."

"Watch out for the human one—it's armed," hissed the male, narrowing his eyes at Nakis.

"The overseer's going to love this!" the third one said. She obviously did not realize the danger of trying Zohaqan's patience. He lifted her bodily by the throat, squeezing her windpipe to choke off her startled cry.

"Stop," Nakis shouted from behind him. "Don't—"

A surge of energy from the other two asura's weapons made Zohaqan hiss in pain as lightning gouged into his side. He dropped the one he had in a chokehold and threw down a wall of ice to block Nakis from the line of fire. "That's ENOUGH!" A blast of wind from his spread palms knocked the weapons from their hands. Mud swelled from the ground to pull the devices out of their reach; Zohaqan saw Nakis kick them further away. Bereft of their defenses, the three asura screeched and cowered before them.

"All right! All right! We surrender!"

"Why did I get stuck on duty roster with you two? Bested by a couple of bookahs!"

"We are _so_ getting our pay docked when the overseer hears about this—"

They all yelped in terror at the crash of thunder Zohaqan summoned to interrupt their jabbering. "Leave and do not return," he enjoined them. "Next time I lay eyes on any of your brethren who trespass here, I will not be so merciful."

"Go away," Nakis growled, "until you're ready to behave like civilized people."

The asura did not acknowledge their words of warning; as one, they turned and fled to their flying vehicle, slammed the hatch closed behind them, and careened away over the waves, heading south. "You should have let me kill them," said Zohaqan, after several moments where the only sounds were Nakis's harsh breathing, the calls of songbirds, and the surf lapping the shore.

Nakis frowned and shook his head. "They were... not friendly, but that isn't a reason for murder." He sighed. "They left, didn't they? No lasting harm was done." He looked up at Zohaqan with wide, worried eyes. "Are you all right?" he asked softly. "I saw them hit you."

"I am uninjured," Zohaqan answered, just as quietly. "But I am angry."

"Me too." He held out his arms, silently entreating Zohaqan to embrace him. "Come on, let's go back to the garden. Forget about them." Zohaqan entered the circle of Nakis's arms, holding him tightly, letting Nakis soothe the ire that churned in his heart. No lasting harm was done. It would have pained Nakis to see Zohaqan take the lives of the asura encroachers, he knew, even if they had intended to harm him. He was glad that he had not given Nakis cause for sorrow by allowing anger to rule his actions.

The chorus of birdsong had continued unabated, as though the altercation on the beach had never upset the peace of this place. Unruffled, untroubled, the birds courted one another, built their nests, quarreled with their rivals, foraged for seeds and worms, rested their heads under their wings. Zohaqan settled once more in the trees to listen. The day passed in tranquility, from noon to sunset to moonrise, the disturbance soon forgotten in the rhythms of life and growth and nature. It was easy to forget that unpleasantness ever existed, when there was so much beauty to enjoy: the flicker of firelight, the voice of the breeze and the waves, the hum of crickets' nighttime chorus filtering into the quietude of the cave.

Zohaqan had been watching Nakis all evening. This pastime of Zohaqan's was not unusual, since Nakis was ever a source of fascination to him—particularly when Nakis had been digging in the garden, as he had been this afternoon. Exertion had made Nakis's body pliant and warm, deepening his breath and adding a languorous, heavy quality to his movements. He smelled of earth and soil and petrichor, even hours after he had bathed away the sweat and dust of his efforts. On days such as this, sometimes he would notice Zohaqan looking at him, and grace the djinn with a dimpled smile. At other times, like tonight, he would catch Zohaqan's eyes on him and slowly roll his shoulders, stretching his arms over his head so that the drape of his tunic invited Zohaqan's attention to contemplate the expanse of rich chocolate skin that it concealed. Zohaqan leaned back in his resting pose, content to enjoy the view.

Nakis looked up at Zohaqan from beneath his eyelashes. "Do you want to—"

"Yes."

Nakis was grinning in a manner reminiscent of a hungry charr regarding his prey. "I didn't even finish asking." He looped his arms around Zohaqan's shoulders and moved to straddle his lap. "How'd you know what I was going to say?"

"I'm fairly certain that you're attempting to seduce me," Zohaqan said mildly. "If that is not the case—" Nakis's forceful kiss made the rest of the sentence superfluous. It took a gratifyingly short amount of time for Nakis to be panting and writhing against him, but he craved more of Nakis's skin. "Get out of these clothes before I tear them off you."

"Bossy," Nakis chuckled, hurrying to comply. His low laughter gave way to a gasp when Zohaqan picked him up and lifted his knees so that they bracketed Zohaqan's head. "Ah, gods, yes..." He sighed under Zohaqan's ministrations for some time before pulling back with a groan. "Stop, mmm, stop, not yet. I want to look at you."

"I am at your disposal." Zohaqan hummed his approval as Nakis climbed down and favored his form with open-mouthed kisses, tracing over swirls of water essence with lips and tongue. Absorbed in Nakis, in his sighs and heat and whispered endearments, Zohaqan felt replete with blessings, like an object of mortal worship. He needed no other supplicants' adoration to sustain him, none but Nakis's praises to fill his heart.

"Oh, sweet Lyssa," moaned Nakis. "You feel—so perfect—like this—" He rocked into Zohaqan's lap, throwing his head back for Zohaqan to kiss his neck.

"Yes, my Nakis, oh—my darling—" Zohaqan loved the dark sweep of Nakis's eyelashes when his eyes fell closed. He loved the salt of Nakis's sweat, caught up in the thatches of rough, curling hair where his skin was warmest. He loved the shape of Nakis's jaw when he let it fall open in breathless pursuit of his pleasure; he loved the broken, needy sounds Nakis made high in his throat, sweeter than any song. He loved the rush of euphoria through Nakis's blood when he shuddered and tensed with a quiet cry; loved the blissful smile that spread across Nakis's lips as his breathing slowed; loved Nakis's weight as he sank into Zohaqan's embrace, flushed and sated and sleepy. He loved the sharpness of each knob of Nakis's spine, the soft smoothness of his flanks; the curve of his shoulders, the dimples of his elbows, the smallest freckle on the tip of his nose. How could one being contain so much love for another, Zohaqan wondered, and not burst? How could such a precious creature as Nakis be his own to love? Perhaps Lyssa, the humans' twin goddess of beauty and illusion, had blessed Nakis's birth. Surely Lyssa must smile on them now when they came together with such joy, two lovers becoming one.

At dawn, Nakis woke to pray and to tend his garden. They walked hand in hand to their tree, greeting the sunrise in quiet introspection. After Nakis had finished with his prayers, Zohaqan kissed him in parting and flew up the path to the cliffs, already anticipating the pleasant afternoon that they would spend together, the same as the many that had gone before.

Though he did not know it, these idle daydreams of Zohaqan's were the last pleasure he would find in solitude for a long time to come. Right now, on this morning, his heart was light. The clouds and sun streaked their painterly patterns on the sea; the birds were singing; the Zephyr flowers were in bloom; Nakis loved him. All was right with the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those two gossiping charr NPCs by the Atholma waypoint are examples of why I love the ambient dialogue in GW2. Hahaha.
> 
> Nakis's riddle-song is based on "Tum Balalayke" (or "Tumbalalaika"), a Russian Yiddish folk tune passed down to me from my Baba—my maternal great-grandmother. She used to sing it as a lullaby.


	11. Experiment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** This chapter earns its **M** rating in a depressing way this time; lots of hurt/no comfort. I'm so sorry.

The sun warmed Nakis's skin as he tended the vegetable patch, clearing new-sprouted weeds from around the stakes that anchored each seedling to the soil. Sweat trickled down his brow; he wiped it away, wishing absently for a breeze to fan him or a raincloud to shade him. He shook his head and smiled, dismissing the thought. Zohaqan would be back soon enough.

Perhaps this afternoon Nakis would go wading in the tidepools to collect kelp for drying and weaving; a better activity for an unseasonably warm day like today. He'd been wanting to try carving a whistle from woody reed stalks, like ones that he'd seen the Olmakhan play. The charr's traditional wind instruments would be much trickier to adapt for human use than their harps, drums, and rattles had been; even the mouthpieces of cub-sized flutes and pipes were simply the wrong shape for Nakis's thinner lips and smaller teeth, and his fingers wouldn't be able to stretch far enough to block the air holes. He would probably huff and puff himself giddy attempting to play one, unless he used some kind of air magic trickery—much better, he decided, to fashion one that he could power with his own breath.

He hummed a song that Efi, one of the shyer village cubs, had taught him. She had been so proud of herself for learning all the words, eager to share her favorite song with a human stranger. Nakis couldn't recall many of the lyrics, but knew that they had been about hope. He remembered how Efi and her mother had sung the song's chorus together, soprano and contralto voices weaving in harmony, mingling with the wind and waves. _May the sun shine on all our tomorrows, once this storm passes and rains out its sorrows_...

Time for a break. The cave would be a pleasantly cool reprieve from the noonday heat, and the thought of fresh berry juice and sun-warmed flatbread made Nakis's stomach rumble. Maybe he'd even have a quick nap before Zohaqan returned. He stowed his gardening tools and ambled down the path to the beach, keeping a hand on one of the daggers at his belt in case of stumbling across any aggressive insects. When he reached the water, he unwrapped his shoes from his feet to take a quick dip in the shallows. He stepped over the rocks to reach the softer sands below the tide line, sinking his toes into the welcome coolness. A wave washed over his ankles and he closed his eyes to luxuriate in the swish of water for a moment, before hopping back to retrieve his shoes and begin collecting the materials for his midday meal.

Nakis was almost back to the cave entrance when he stumbled over something and fell to the ground with a startled grunt. He blinked. What had he tripped on? He didn't see any conspicuous rocks or roots, certainly none large enough to have collided with his shin. He rubbed at the bruise, frowning. Cautiously, he stretched out a hand and probed the air in front of him for the unseen obstacle, freezing when his fingers encountered a smooth surface. The shape that he felt out seemed to be made of metal panels: a box of some kind. It was completely invisible.

Nakis sat for several moments in bewilderment before his brows pulled down into a scowl. Unease made the hairs at the back of his neck bristle. He stood up, silently drew both daggers from his belt, and began stepping toward the cave as quietly as possible, listening with his earth-sense. He inhaled through his nose sharply when he felt them: five of the creatures from yesterday—asura—all standing around the cave mouth. None of them were moving, except to shift their weight back and forth on their feet, as though in boredom or impatience. They were waiting in ambush... Waiting for him. Nakis steadied the knives in his hands with a slow, determined breath.

A light cough echoed from the cave, followed by a whispered rebuke. "Silence!"

"I am being silent!" another voice muttered back. A chorus of shushes rippled through the others, at which the protesting voice grumbled, "What's the point, anyway? The bookahs aren't here! Why go to all this effort just for two lousy test subjects?"

"They aren't just any test subjects," said a third voice in an irritated huff. "One's a djinn—a powerful one. Exactly what the overseer's been looking for—"

"And collecting it will require subtlety and patience," drawled a fourth voice. Nakis thought he recognized it as belonging to the leader of the group from yesterday. "We're better prepared this time. It won't get the drop on us again."

"Why we aren't looking for the blasted subjects, then, instead of standing around here?"

"Because, you idiot," replied the last asura, "that's Fark's team's job. We stay here until they've found and subdued one of the subjects, and we get the other."

"I hope we get the djinn," said the leader with relish. "I owe it some pain for what it did to us yesterday."

"Not me, I hope we get the human. I don't fancy the prospect of getting barbecued by up to eighty kilothaums of choleric power—"

"Hmph. Surely it can't be that much."

"Did you even _read_ the manual?"

"I skimmed it."

"Figures."

"If you're quite finished," snapped the one who had first spoken, "for the love of the Eternal Alchemy, will you cretins shut up now!" They all fell silent once more.

"Come in, Parvo. This is Fark." A sixth voice, with a strangely tinny quality to it and no apparent source, made Nakis chew his lip in apprehension. "Confirmed visual on the djinn. It is alone. Draining and containment module is active."

"Excellent," replied the one whom Fark had evidently been addressing. "That should render it defenseless." Nakis swallowed, dread settling into his stomach at the cruel nonchalance of the asura's words.

"Stand by to nab the human," the disembodied voice crackled. "Fark out."

"Acknowledged." Parvo began calling out orders to the others. "Spread out in a search formation. Find that gibbering simian before we waste any more time."

"No need," said the leader from yesterday, with a chilling note of smugness in her voice. "I've just picked up its signature—it's right outside."

"How convenient," said Parvo. "After we incapacitate it we'll rendezvous with Fark to liquefy that blasted djinn—"

"No!" Nakis burst into the cave with a cry of fury, shooting a blast of fire at the closest asura, who yelled and dropped to the ground in an attempt to smother the flames on the front of her uniform. "You will not touch him!" Nakis roared. "I won't let you take him!"

The four other asura sprang into action, throwing down orbs of choking gas and firing magical weapons at him. He dashed out of the way, kicking out at them with spikes of rock and following up with a blast of ash. Two of them coughed and ducked, and Parvo barked out what sounded like an order. "Disengage stealth shield and activate the Centurion!"

From outside, a clunk and a series of thudding sounds vibrated through the ground. Nakis didn't have time to turn around to look; he whipped rocks around him in a whirlwind, cracking lightning out like a whip at another asura, who screeched and clapped a hand over her eyes. Turning away from her, he exploded ice shards around him and knocked two more asura off their feet with a gust of frigid air. A moment later, he grunted in pain as a bolt of energy hit him in the back, leaving him winded. Nakis searched around for the shooter, seeing that there was only one asura left standing. He bolted forward to engage the asura, mud surging under his feet, when he started at a buzzing noise from behind him—a voice. _"Target—acquired,"_ the voice stuttered, eerie in its utter lack of inflection. _"Subjugation—protocols—active."_ Nakis spun to confront the new threat and couldn't stifle a gasp.

A mechanical monster the size of a man was advancing on him, raining down blows with huge metal fists. One powerful swing thudded into Nakis's side; he cried out as he felt his ribs crack under the impact. He shielded himself with ice and hurled flames from his righthand dagger at the monster's head, but it didn't yield in its assault, its fists continuing to pummel him in a flurry of swipes and jabs. Nakis wheezed around his aching ribs, quelling a surge of panic. He had to get away—had to free Zohaqan before it was too late—had to warn the villagers—

Something hard smashed into the back of his head, shattering into fragments that sliced at his skin as pain bloomed in his skull. He staggered and fell, scraping both his knees as he skidded on the rough cave floor, losing his grip on both his daggers. A muddle of asura voices spoke words that faded in and out of his hearing, under the roaring of blood in his ears. "The overseer... decontaminate the subject... secure for transport... pay for the damage it's caused..."

Nakis regained consciousness with a fresh outpouring of pain from his head and his ribs. Groaning and swallowing the wave of bile in his throat, he cracked his eyes open. He must have only blacked out for a few moments, but it had been enough time for the asura to regroup and overwhelm him. Manacles encircled both of his wrists and fetters bound his ankles. Unbidden, memories of the forced march he had endured after his exile flashed through his mind: the welts from ropes rubbing his skin raw, the taunts of the soldiers, the sobbing moans of the other prisoners, the blistering sting of sand, the stench of tar and fevered sweat... Nakis retched, clutching his head until the bout of dizziness passed.

The asura didn't wait for him to pull himself together. He felt the world around him sway and lurch as clawed hands yanked at his arms to haul him into a kneeling position. "Let go of me, you horrible little brutes—" Nakis cut off with a cry as the butt of a rifle smacked into his cheekbone. The pain and nausea almost made him pass out again. Biting his tongue hard, he refrained from speaking and let his body go limp as the asura and their metal monstrosity dragged him out of the cave and down to the water's edge. A mechanical skimmer, similar to the one that had invaded their beach yesterday, shimmered into view from behind a stealth screen, like the one that had concealed the Centurion. A compartment in the back of the skimmer whirred open and the asura shoved Nakis unceremoniously inside, heedless of his injuries. The door slammed shut again before he could catch his breath to fight back or utter a word of protest.

Hissing a curse through his teeth, he collapsed against the wall of the compartment and assessed the extent of the damage from the beating he had taken. He wasn't bleeding and none of his bones seemed broken, but he probably had at least a mild concussion, and a multitude of bruises. With his hands bound, he couldn't cast magic to tend to his wounds. He yelped when the floor suddenly tilted underneath him; the skimmer was taking off. The floor and walls of the cell were all smooth metal, with no surface or handhold against which he might brace himself. Nakis lowered himself to lie flat, the better to avoid jarring his aching head and sides with every swerving motion of the skimmer.

The inevitability of his fate settled over Nakis like a pall, numbing him to his pain and fear. He didn't have the power to escape, not while laid low and trussed up like livestock as he was. He was helpless to save Zohaqan, who even now could be imprisoned in a cage like this one, beaten and drained, held at the questionable mercy of his asura captors. Where were they taking him? What would they do to him?

With little else to occupy his thoughts, Nakis shut his eyes and pressed his wrists together, feeling for the reassuring weight of wooden prayer beads behind the shackles that bound him. He couldn't touch the individual beads to keep an accurate count of the customary repetitions, but he held onto the words of prayer in his mind like a talisman. Trapped and alone, he whispered petitions to a Goddess who may not have been listening, yet whom he entreated to aid him nonetheless.

"Save me from darkness and evil. Teach me acceptance and peace, that I might find a greater understanding. Tear back the veils of ignorance and throw open the gates of Your wisdom. If I must fight in the name of Your truth, may I never fight alone..."

He stirred from an agitated doze some time later, when the motions of the skimmer stopped as abruptly as they had started. The compartment door slid open again; he squinted against the glare of white lights and stiffened as he felt asura hands shoving and grabbing at him once more. They dumped him onto a flat, moving surface, kicking him viciously when he stumbled. The belt of solid light on which he stood shunted him into a dark tunnel where acrid steam poured out of the walls, making him cough. He spilled out the other end of the tunnel into a room where more man-sized mechanical constructs reached for his arms and legs, removing the cuffs and chains.

Nakis yelled when one construct extended a sharp, gleaming scissor blade to his wrist, but it didn't cut his skin; it snipped the cord of his prayer beads and whisked them away, replacing them with a metal tag clamped around his lower arm. "Hey! No! That's mine! Let go of me—" He struggled frantically in the grip of the constructs; they did not budge as they lifted him by his hands and feet, marching him down a series of twisting corridors until they reached a row of cells. The room stank of the same acrid steam that had assaulted his nostrils in the tunnel. Before he could make a move to bolt away or lash out at his jailers, bars of lightning flickered down in a grid to pen him in. The thrum of the force cage made his head throb.

With his hands unbound at last, Nakis pressed restorative magic to his temples to soothe his pounding headache, then healed the contusions on his ribs and face as best he could. He drank conjured water in gasping gulps, ignoring the pangs of hunger that were now his most pressing discomfort. Were the asura going to starve him to death? Shivering, he huddled in a corner of the cell and rubbed warmth into his arms. "Is anybody there?" His voice echoed hollowly, but there was no response.

His earth-sense told him that there were other creatures in the adjacent cells. Most seemed to be animals, but there were charr, too, and even some skritt. If Zohaqan occupied any of these enclosures, Nakis had no way of knowing without being able to see beyond the bars of his cage. He slammed a fist against the wall in frustration with a dull thud. Whatever material made up these compartments dampened all sound—he would not be able to communicate with any of his fellow prisoners who were capable of speech.

The interior of his prison was completely bare, with not so much as a pile of rags to sleep on or a bucket in which to relieve himself. Even King Joko's dungeons were said to have better accommodations than these. Nakis tugged at his hair, thinking hard. No matter how grim the outlook, there was still a chance at escaping, now that he could use magic again; he could still fight if given the opportunity. Until then, all he had to do was wait. Wait, and pray.

* * *

"Step away from the containment matrix," a bored asura voice ordered. Nakis lifted his head from where he had been resting it on his knees and stood up, watching the bars of his cell. Six asura guards waited behind the grid in a semicircle. The one who had spoken rolled her eyes and repeated her command with exaggerated slowness. "Step... away... from... the containment matrix... bookah... or else... we will... disintegrate you."

He'd noticed that the asura usually did not speak to him directly—they obviously did not consider him to be more worthy of respect than a dung beetle, or any other simple-minded beast. It was clear that in their eyes, he was not even a prisoner; he was chattel. With six armed guards blocking his only escape route, there was little point in resisting. He glared at the guards and stepped back, letting them grab hold of him and frogmarch him out of his cell.

The guards seemed to know exactly where they were going, but Nakis soon lost track of the sequence of turns they took through the maze of corridors. Even if he could have fought all of them off, he would have no idea of how to get free of this labyrinthine complex. "Where are you taking me?" he demanded. As he expected, they ignored his question and continued talking amongst themselves as though he couldn't understand them.

"I hear Subject Beta is almost ready."

"Good. All of these tiresome setbacks have been making my ears itch."

"At this rate we'll be next in line for promotion to major tech."

"Well... _I_ will be, at least."

"This test subject seems so scrawny for a bookah. What does the overseer even want with it?"

"The overseer doesn't pay you to question her orders."

"I wasn't questioning orders, I was just—"

"Shut your grub hole and swipe us through."

The addressed guard grunted and slapped a palm to a panel next to a door. It emitted a chime and slid open, revealing a dimly lit chamber lined with desks and alchemical apparatus. "Got your test subject as requested, Overseer." As the guards shoved Nakis to his knees, an asura wearing a bloodred garment that matched her unpleasantly reptilian eyes strode toward them.

"Put it in the airlock and then get out of my sight," she ordered, waving impatiently at the wall behind her. They manhandled Nakis across the threshold of a cubical enclosure and locked him inside before he could throw them off.

He scrambled to his feet and punched the transparent panel of the door as steam hissed into the chamber. "Let me out!" he yelled.

To his surprise, the red-garbed asura responded to his outburst. "Cease your whining, test subject." She did not meet his eye, focusing instead on titrating a glowing green liquid into a glass vessel.

"You're speaking to me, then?" Nakis pushed around every seam in the metal panels of the chamber, searching for structural weaknesses, not hopeful that he would find any. "I thought you people don't think of me as an intelligent life form?"

"Obviously," she sneered, "you possess at least a modicum of intelligence. You'd be of little use to me if you didn't."

Nakis swallowed. "And what use is that?"

"Experimental calibration." The asura lowered an eyepiece over her face to scrutinize some readout in her equipment. "Your species exhibits primitive strategic aptitude and limited prowess in magical combat, which will test the capabilities of my specimens when I expose you to them."

"Combat?" Nakis clenched and unclenched his fists. "Are you saying you're going to let me fight my way out of here? Aren't you worried I'll escape, or damage your... specimens?"

"I doubt you will survive the full duration of the fifteen minutes I have allocated for the experiment." Nakis shuddered at the apathy evident in her tone. "Besides, the specimens are simulacra—easily replicated. Like you, they are eminently disposable."

Nakis's face twisted in hatred. "I won't play your sick games," he spat. "I'd sooner slit my own throat than fight to the death for your amusement."

"I can collect just as much calibration data from your corpse as from your behavioral responses to stimuli." She shrugged. "I assure you I will derive little amusement from the experiment in any case, since it will run automatically while I attend to business elsewhere." She laid down her tools on her desk.

"You can't do this!" Nakis kicked at the door with all his strength, not leaving even a small dent in its surface.

The asura turned her back and made her way to the exit. "Lights," she said, casting the room into complete darkness. The door clicked shut behind her. Nakis continued attacking the sealed walls of his prison in a seething rage, bitterly aware of the futility of his actions.

He froze at the sound of a detached voice echoing from the other side of the chamber as the door behind him slid open. "Calibration assessment will commence in T minus sixty seconds. Fifty-nine... Fifty-eight..." Nakis stepped into the revealed space, glancing around for anything he could use to defend himself, but seeing nothing of use. He walked to the center of the chamber with his back straight and his jaw set. Hopefully, he thought, his death would be quick, though it was not likely to be painless. "Thirteen... Twelve... Eleven..."

" _And so it came to pass_ ," Nakis began reciting, fiercely enunciating every word to drown out the voice in his ears, " _that Spearmarshal Kormir, hero of all Elona, was pulled into the inky blackness surrounding the God of Secrets_..."

"Two... One... Zero." Before Nakis's eyes, a sharp humming noise accompanied the materialization of a hideous, hulking monster that glowed with pulsating purple light. A foul-smelling miasma radiated from crystalline pustules all over the monster's body; it reeked of brimstone and seared flesh, of brine and rotting leaves. It emitted a groaning roar that rose in pitch and volume until it became an earsplitting shriek.

Nakis breathed slowly in and out to still the wobble in his voice. " _And though her sight had... b-been robbed_ ," he continued chanting, squinting his eyes against the monster's nauseating aura, " _her b-body wracked, and—her sp-spirit... flayed_..." The monster's maw dripped with eerily glowing saliva that hissed and dissolved pits into the stone where it dripped on the floor. Nakis choked on a sob. " _She remained... resolute_ —"

A gnarled arm the size of a tree trunk swung toward Nakis and smashed into his face, sending him flying across the room. The monster's touch burned into his skin, his eyes; all thoughts of prayer or dignity or bravery fled from his mind as the pain overtook his senses. Every wound that the monster inflicted on him was a torment beyond what he thought he could bear, and yet the hoped-for killing blow never came. The asura overseer would later discover that there had been a wider margin of error than she had estimated in her calculations of how long her test subject would survive the specimen calibration.

He screamed until well after his voice was gone, and was still screaming when the simulacrum dissolved back into the walls of the chamber at the conclusion of the quarter of an hour that the overseer had allocated. Perhaps it was a blessing that Nakis didn't remember anything else, after that.


	12. Stolen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same warning here as for the previous chapter. Depictions of violence ahead.

Zohaqan wandered through the thickets of the hunting grounds, keeping to the shade of tall grasses, hoping that he might find a rabbit or two to catch for Nakis's dinner. The rabbits were plentiful now in their breeding season, and too small for the Olmakhan charr to bother with hunting for themselves; besides, Nakis had said he wanted to sew a rabbit-skin bag for a friend of his in the village, in exchange for a new metal cooking pot. "We already have a cooking pot," Zohaqan had pointed out to him.

"Yes, but what if we want to have guests over? Cook something more elaborate?" Nakis had looked at him with wide eyes and his most winning smile. "We've been here nearly a year, now. I thought it might be nice to invite some friends, have a little celebratory feast... What do you think?"

"I'd be happy to welcome guests into our domain, if you wish it," Zohaqan had agreed readily. He had silently hoped that the more gossip-prone villagers were not among Nakis's preferred invitees.

Nakis's eyes had brightened with excitement as he'd elaborated his plans. "We'd need to bag a couple of nice big rock gazelles to feed them—"

"One or two gazelles per guest, I would estimate," Zohaqan had interrupted drily. "I don't think those will fit into a cooking pot, but we could spit-roast them. And to wash down the meal?"

"We could make tiare blossom tea," Nakis had suggested. "Lots and lots of tea. Bucketsful. Maybe some of that wine you've been brewing, too—is it ready yet?"

"Yes," Zohaqan had said, "but I was going to save it for—later."

"Mmm, is that so?" Nakis had winked at him, indicating that he too was remembering the last time they had gotten tipsy on Zohaqan's passionflower wine, and the ensuing activities that had occupied them for much of that night and into the early hours of the following morning. "I'll take you up on that, love... Later." Heat flashed through Zohaqan at the remembered words—or perhaps it was the noon sunlight that warmed him. It was an unusually balmy day for so soon in the season. The air was wavering above the ground with particles of steam.

Had there been a shadow of movement there, behind the bushes? Zohaqan drifted down to the earth and peeked around the leaves, coming face-to-face with a startled rabbit. It scampered away from him, then suddenly jerked to an abrupt stop with a _thunk_ , shook itself in stunned confusion, and darted in the opposite direction. It had crashed headlong into a shimmering portion of humid air, so it would seem. But whatever the rabbit had encountered was clearly not air; it was solid. There was some enchantment afoot.

Zohaqan cocked his head, noticing as he did so a high-frequency humming sound. It was almost too high-pitched even for djinn hearing, vibrating in a faintly irritating whine through his essence. When he searched for the source of the sound, he found that it was growing more intense, almost painful. He felt as dazed as the rabbit, as though something had knocked his senses askew, though nothing was touching him. Holding up two of his hands, he saw them waver and warp at the edges, dissolving into vapor against his will. Zohaqan's essence began collapsing earthward, roiling over the ground like fog as the humming noise shook through him. He grasped for ice and hail to defend himself, but though he strained, he could not connect to the water magic that should have flowed at his command.

"We've got it!" a shrill voice cried. "Not so powerful now, eh? Reel it in, boys."

Even half-blinded and deafened with the loss of his water magic, Zohaqan could make out his attackers by the disturbances they made in the air and earth: five asura shapes and one metal construct. They must have been concealing themselves with a mesmeric veil that had tricked Zohaqan's senses. Now that he had identified his enemies, he would not allow them to fool him the same way again. Nor would he allow the asura's foul contraptions to overthrow him. He was Zohaqan, Spirit of the Storm, mighty among djinn, and these vermin would not yoke him so easily.

Zohaqan concentrated on gathering air magic around the asura's mechanical construct, which was the most likely source of whatever was disrupting his connection to the essence of water. The magic that he channeled felt lopsided and unbalanced, but he could still bend it with enough concentration; his effort was similar to how mortals could write legibly, though clumsily, when deprived of using their dominant limbs. He called down lightning to rip through the construct's circuitry and energy core. As it sizzled and smoked, the asura all began squeaking and scurrying about the hunk of metal wreckage like terrified rats.

"What the flux—how is that possible?"

"It used air magic! I thought they said it was a water djinn!"

"It _is_ a water djinn, you numbskull—"

"The golem's power crystal is completely fried!"

"Blast it!"

The blockage to Zohaqan's magic had disappeared along with the aggravating vibrations that had been shaking his essence apart. Strength surged back into his form as he resolidified himself and drew upon the power of the sky, lifting his hands to strike. "Your trickery is no match for my power, craven mortals. Vermin." He glared down at the quailing asura with ice rippling along all four of his arms. "You cannot hope to defeat me."

They wailed in terror. "What do we do now? Help! Help!" How quickly the cowards turned from arrogance and boasting to sniveling for mercy, once they realized how thoroughly they were outmatched.

With a crash that made the trees shake, Zohaqan struck the ground before the asura's feet, splitting it to form a boundary between him and them. "Begone from here," he intoned, his voice like thunder. "This is your last warning!"

The asura with the largest ears bared his teeth. They were sharp and needle-like, menacing as a shark's. "Fine," he said. "You have our word, djinn: we'll leave you alone."

"But boss," another asura protested, "the overseer said—"

"If the overseer wants this test subject so badly," the leader cut him off, "she can damn well collect it herself!" He gestured with a craggy, taloned hand to his fellows. "Well? You heard me, you imbeciles. Need I remind you we're on the clock? Move!" He shoved his weapon into the back of each one in turn. Muttering and grumbling, they followed him back down the cliff path and out of sight. Zohaqan threw one more lightning bolt after them for good measure. It cleaved the trunk of a nearby baoba sapling, setting it on fire. The flames crackled and hissed when the raindrops fell onto them from Zohaqan's localized cloudburst.

These asura were not the same as the ones who had come yesterday; clearly, they were a more persistent and insidious threat than they had first appeared. If more of them had returned to the shore by the cave, lurking behind their cloaks of stealth, then Nakis would not know of their presence. Nakis was in danger.

Zohaqan could tell that something was wrong as soon as he emerged from the forest and saw the scatter of rocks and scuff marks around the entrance to the cave. There had been a struggle here. "My Nakis, where are you?" He called out to Nakis even though there was no sign of life, man or asura, within the cave. Alarmed now, he crossed the cavern threshold and looked around in dismay at the debris littering the ground. Pottery fragments, scorched stone, metal shards, bootprints—and droplets of human blood, so small that only a djinn could detect them. Not enough blood to have come from a serious wound, but it was evidence that the asura had struck Nakis with intent to injure him.

The drips of blood were brown and dry. How long ago had the asura stolen Nakis? How much time had Zohaqan lost, dawdling unwittingly in the forest while Nakis was fighting for his freedom or his life? Such neglect of a beloved treasure was a disgrace, a shame that flooded Zohaqan almost more than the fear for Nakis's safety. Zohaqan sped from the cave to the water's edge and flew south, urging the breezes faster. He could afford no more delay.

Casting long shadows over the sea, the asuran complex that Zohaqan had last seen months ago was now large enough to blot out the sun. The apex of the intersecting cubes that made up the bulk of the structure was higher than the level of the clouds. Towers, platforms, and artillery weapons dotted the sky above and around the sloping walls. This was not just a building; it was a city. A fortress. Zohaqan needed to find a way inside. Swooping down to the sea level, he followed the scent of sludge and effluvia to where pipes churned filth into the water: not the most pleasant of passageways, but a convenient chink in the city's defenses. Wherever water flowed, Zohaqan could extend his senses to see and hear all; the asura would have no secrets hidden from him, and he would find where they were keeping Nakis. It was only a matter of time.

* * *

Over three hours had passed since Zohaqan's skirmish with the asura in the forest, and he was no closer to locating Nakis. The asuran city was a maze of tunnels and chambers, crawling with uniformed guards. Zohaqan had disguised himself as a cloud of mist to travel unhindered through their halls, searching for signs of Nakis. He had found a room with rows of prison cells, holding all manner of creatures both living and dead: charr, dolphin, hyena, skritt. Some cells were empty, and one looked to have been vacated only recently. Every surface was scoured clean; still, under the stink of ammonia, Zohaqan sensed a hint of human sweat that hung in the air. Nakis had been here.

Sound would not travel through the material of these walls, but each cell looked out onto the same hallway. Zohaqan scanned down the row from the empty cell. Most of the occupants that way were asleep, but in one cell he saw a single skritt, beady-eyed and shivering. He squeezed himself carefully between the gaps of the energy grid shielding the front of the skritt's cell. One skritt was not as useful for information as if there had been a group imprisoned together, yet even alone, they were observant; this one immediately turned her head and flicked her tail at the faint breeze of Zohaqan's presence. "Where is the human who was held here?" he asked her. The skritt's ears and nose twitched.

"Huh? Misty cloud talk? Storm wizard?" She scratched nervous claws at the floor, darting her eyes around to look for the source of Zohaqan's voice. He huffed at the creature in impatience.

"Yes... I am a storm wizard." He condensed cool water onto the skritt's fur to wash away the grime; she licked at it greedily. He dripped more water into her mouth to ease her thirst. "Did you see the human prisoner?"

"Skritt saw human... yes, yes. Nasty shouty asura took human away." She whimpered. "Help skritt..."

"Where?" Zohaqan insisted. "Where did the asura take him?"

The skritt's tail curled up around her haunches, like a worm wriggling for shelter behind a rock. "Shouty ones yelled about overseer. Specimen... specimen chamber? Bad place. Others got taken there. Never come back."

Zohaqan probed at the lines of magical fire barring the entrance of the cell. A power crystal fed energy to it via a simple conduit that he could dismantle easily. Now that the skritt had told him what he needed to know, he could free the prisoners here to cause a diversion while he searched for this... specimen chamber. The skritt bolted out of the cell as soon as the energy grid flickered away. "Go. Quickly," Zohaqan called, shooting lightning to the other crystals to disable the cell doors.

"Thank you, storm wizard! Help skritt. Friend!" The skritt's tail disappeared around the corner as she fled from the hall. Zohaqan did not linger when the other living prisoners stirred awake and began to stumble out of their cells. He had no time.

An asura guard was patrolling at the end of an adjacent hallway, but not very attentively. He gave no notice as Zohaqan wrapped tendrils of mist around his throat that solidified into gripping fingers. The guard's squawk of surprise spluttered into choked silence. "Where is the specimen chamber?" Zohaqan said into his ear. "Speak quickly and I will let you live."

The asura gasped and coughed as soon as Zohaqan released his neck. "Th—three intersections down that way. Beta seven. Two right turns and then straight," he croaked. "Don't hurt me!" Zohaqan was already flying away, cutting through an air duct to take a shortcut to the location that the guard had described.

He emerged into a chamber lined with containment tanks that held ugly, vile creatures. Even through the suppressant gel and force fields, the abominations floating within stank of draconic corruption. Zohaqan ignored them, for he had at last found what he sought: he spotted a pitiful human form huddled in the center of the chamber, barely breathing, barely alive.

Nakis was on his hands and knees—or what was left of them. His left leg ended in a shredded mess of skin, flesh, and splintered bone halfway down his thigh. Despite his wounds and evident weakness, he seemed to be attempting to drag himself across the floor, his chest heaving, his hair matted with muck. While Zohaqan watched, frozen with horror, Nakis slipped and fell into the spreading pool of his own blood that ran freely from his mangled leg. What Zohaqan could see of Nakis's skin was shockingly drab, almost gray; it was obvious that he had lost too much blood, that his wounds would soon prove fatal. He was breathing in quiet sobs, muttering to himself, though Zohaqan could not make out the words. "No..." Zohaqan whispered. "No, no... Oh, my Nakis, what have they done to you?"

Nakis lifted his head with a rattling gasp. Zohaqan saw now that his face was a wreck of raw flesh from his forehead to his mouth, his eye sockets gaping in appalling emptiness, his nose an almost unrecognizable lump of ruined cartilage. His lips were intact, though chapped and stained crimson with his blood, and his tongue still moved in his mouth behind the chipped remains of broken teeth. He continued to rasp words to himself—words that Zohaqan, in a lurch of sickening clarity, was able to understand. "Wa...ter," Nakis was saying, breath barely trickling past his lips. "Wa...ter... p—please... I..." He slumped over in a faint.

"No! NAKIS!" His horrified paralysis broken, Zohaqan rushed to Nakis's side. The djinn pressed a surge of ice magic to his wounded leg to stop the flow of blood, even knowing it was far too late to replenish what Nakis had lost. Nakis's heart was already fluttering now; his pulse was slowing—slowing—stopped. "No, no! NO!" Zohaqan thumped Nakis's chest repeatedly to coax the muscle fibers to beat again, pushing air down his throat into his lungs. The effort was futile. There was no magic that could save him once the last spark of energy in his brain died, fizzled into nothing. Between one moment and the next, the elements of Nakis's body became inert as mud and clay. His spirit was gone.

Zohaqan's keening wail of despair cracked the walls of the chamber and split the pipes that fed into the tanks mounted by the ceiling. Steam and noxious fumes hissed through the broken ducts. A siren blared, washing the room in sickly red light. "Specimen chamber breach," a clipped female voice sounded over the alarm. "All scientists to evacuate the premises immediately. Guards to sector five-eight-two-beta-seven. Extreme force authorized. Please note that employee insurance does not cover workplace-related injuries due to choleric elemental energy discharge."

Hurried footsteps clanged up the corridor. Shouts and the thudding of metal on stone—several asura were running toward the exit of the complex, carrying reams of paper. Scientists, evacuating the premises— Torturers. Murderers. Zohaqan swooped to chase after them, flying through the sliding stone doors that led outside before they slammed closed. He conjured a wall of ice to block the way of the fleeing scientists; they shrieked in panic, their papers scattering. Zohaqan lifted his arms to the sky and summoned all the clouds and winds he could muster, swirling them into a thick, churning storm that shrouded the afternoon sun. Rain spilled from the sky in frigid torrents. Lightning flashed, disorienting the trapped asura in the sudden darkness. The deluge soaked them, drenching their uniforms and reducing their strewn papers to piles of mush.

Master Sousuke of the Zaishen Order, the first human weaver of elements, once taught: _The same hands that make the pattern also unmake it._ With those words in his mind, Zohaqan unraveled the air, tearing it asunder with the force of his fury. The resulting shockwave made the earth tremble; the whine of elements splitting caused the asura to clutch at their heads and blood to leak from their nostrils and ears. So fragile, so breakable, so brittle. All mortal. The snap of bones shattering when Zohaqan smashed them into the ground was a sharp satisfaction, tinged with bitter gall. He watched the sparks of life in the spongy gray matter of their brains flicker out, one by one, like fireflies.

More asura in red and black uniforms came swarming out of the stone doors of the complex. Their helmets and magic-charged weapons afforded them no more protection than flimsy termite carapaces; Zohaqan crushed them with hailstones the size of boulders that pounded into them, twisting their frames into hideous shapes. Their blood mingled with the freezing downpour in a slurry of ice and gore. Several more asura guards skidded on the sleet, losing their balance, only to struggle to regain control of their limbs as water froze around them to imprison them. The howling of the wind and the roar of rain drowned out their screams.

Above, the clouds wheeled into a funnel, sending debris and bodies flying. The sky was turning black. Plasma flared violet at the highest point of a nearby signal tower, until the steel beams supporting it began to buckle under the onslaught of the gale. The oncoming cyclone ripped it from its foundations with a screech and groan of crumpling metal. A similar fate was in store for anything living that still clung to shelter in the midst of the storm. As Zohaqan flew up to circle the rim of the tornado, he sensed more creatures moving in a straggling column along the beach. Not asura: these were escaping prisoners, survivors of the same torments that had snuffed out Nakis's life. They were fleeing northward to freedom, whole and unscarred, while whatever remained of Nakis was lying broken and bleeding and wasted in the bowels of this horrible place—

"Heartless fools!" Zohaqan roared, his voice echoing over the storm's wrath. "You will pay in blood!"

Not a one of them deserved to continue breathing. They would not find safety, Zohaqan vowed; they would find no refuge on these shores, nor would they remain survivors for long. They would die in agony, as Nakis had. Zohaqan would batter them to pulp—rend them limb from limb—flay the soft tissues from their bones and suck their corpses into the drowning deep. Their fat and muscle and sinew was nothing to him, nothing but rot and putrescence. What was the value of mortal flesh? Zohaqan could fill the sea with their blood, pave the ocean floor with their heads, and still the violence he wrought wouldn't repay a fraction of an infinitesimal speck of the ransom that he was owed. Not even the gods knew whatever mysterious force had bound Nakis's soul to his body; no power now could restore that severed bond. Zohaqan's hands, which scant hours ago had woven through his lover's hair, would never touch joy again. What use for them now, but to unmake those who had violated and betrayed him?

On the northern island, in the cave where he and Nakis had made love for the last time, Zohaqan's winds shredded the remnants of the bower he had built for Nakis, obliterating all trace of the asura that had soiled the place with their filth when they had stolen his Nakis away from him. "Unforgivable!" Zohaqan bellowed into the squalling rain. "There shall be no mercy for your trespass!" Fragments of Zohaqan's shattered sleeping-vase littered the cave floor, but he didn't need it any longer. Sleep was for those who could still know peace. None on this island, least of all him, would sleep tonight, except in death.

Zohaqan called to the earth and air and water around him to congeal into elementals, walking manifestations of energy that would flatten all in their path. He set his essence resonating in a standing wave that echoed himself and his storm in a threefold pattern, then unleashed the twisters and elementals from the cave to gouge their wreckage into the forest above the cliffs. Even without his direct control, his storm drew power from the ocean now. Under Zohaqan's command, the furious tempest would transfigure his and Nakis's island paradise, razing all that grew and blossomed, until this land reflected the pitted hellscapes of the Realm of Torment.

Near the mouth of their cave stood the tree that Nakis had engraved with his love—two figures holding hands, initials inscribed in a heart. It stood in mockery of Zohaqan's pain. Nakis had sworn to be his, forever, and Nakis was gone. The asura filth had given their word to leave Zohaqan alone... He was alone.

"You mortals feign civility," Zohaqan howled to the uncaring sky, "yet speak nothing but treachery and lies!" He wrenched the diamond ring from his finger and hurled it into the wind and lightning. It was worthless—a reminder of a mortal vow hastily made, and so easily broken.

Thus, Zohaqan learned on the day his heart died: Lyssa's gifts are a two-edged knife, for beauty may inspire madness, and a promise, once broken, is no better than a lie. A shattered dream cuts slivers in the soul, sharp as mirror-glass. That glimpse of salvation across the wide desert of loneliness was only a mirage; maybe happiness was an illusion all along.

Zohaqan's storm blew for hours, though the passage of time was once again a meaningless concept, as it had been before he and Nakis had found each other. Eternity had seemed so far away while Nakis still thrived, yet Zohaqan knew it had always awaited him, at the end of Nakis's span of mortal years. Would it have pained him just as much to watch Nakis age and wither in the fullness of time? They should have had hundreds of dozens of sunrises left to share, before he would have had to give up his Nakis to death's embrace. All of those sunrises, and thousands more, would not have been enough for him. Nakis was a cruel and faithless lover indeed to have abandoned Zohaqan's arms for those of Grenth, the Prince of Ice and Sorrow. Zohaqan screamed out his anguished jealousy until his voice and the sky's voice were indistinguishable.

Some time later, the sound of whispers and padding footsteps disturbed the already despoiled sanctuary of Zohaqan's cave. Nakis's erstwhile friends, it sounded like—the Olmakhan charr. A band of them, armed and angry, strode into the cave, spreading out to surround Zohaqan. They trained their weapons on him. "Stay alert!" a female among them spoke, growling in warning to her companions. "We're not through this yet."

Zohaqan drew up his form to his full height, plunging the temperature of the cave to below freezing. Ice crackled from beneath him to snap at the intruders' feet. "How dare you come here!" he thundered at them. They did not flinch. Charr are not ones to back down from a battle, even those who have renounced the ways of war.

Another charr barked out a threat, baring her fangs in a snarl. "Stand down, djinn! End your rampage, or we will end you!"

"They stole from me, and now you barge in here with empty demands?" Fools they were, to think they could destroy a djinn of Zohaqan's power. They could exhaust him, they could drain him for a time, but it would take more than mortal weapons to slay him. He would welcome the chance to thrash all of them, even if they whipped and chained his essence for it. "You know nothing!" Zohaqan said, his voice rising in outrage and loathing. "You ARE nothing!"

They needed no more provocation to pounce. They hit him with the fierceness of tooth and claw and elemental magic, as well as with torches, arrows and blades. Zohaqan wounded many of his assailants before his strength failed; still, they hurt him more sorely than he did them. Though they could not break the Spirit of the Storm entirely, they diminished him until he was little more than a wisp, unable to lash out with enough force to harm even the weakest among them. Zohaqan slunk into the puddles of the cave floor, beaten and wretched, but still alive. What wounded him more than the aching of his bruised essence was the knowledge that he would continue existing, perhaps until the end of the world, with this pain that should have killed him.

They would come back, Zohaqan thought. The Olmakhan had not done yet with punishing him. Even so, though he held onto the promise of a forthcoming fight as the only balm for his misery, no mortal power would ever be able to punish Zohaqan as much as he wished to punish himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The disturbing imagery of the sea's waters being blood and its stones being the heads of men is not something I came up with on my own. It's from a Finnish folk poem, which you can hear set to haunting melody in the third movement of Aulis Sallinen's op. 33, [_Lauluja mereltӓ_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvoAy1xASTE) (Songs of the sea).


	13. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains a minor spoiler for the Hall of Chains raid, I guess? I never played through the raid myself, so doing the lore research for this chapter actually surprised me a little bit.

It was so terribly, bitterly cold. Cold, and dark. Not even the barest glimmer of warmth existed; there was no memory of light, no memory of anything. There was no sky. A green-gray mist wreathed the ground, spreading its chill tendrils everywhere. It was... wrong. There was something important to do, something missing—

The spirit stared at its surroundings, unseeing, confused. It looked down at itself. Legs... hands... did they belong to it? They must have, for they moved when the spirit willed itself forward. The spirit stumbled, crying out instinctively and flinching from the ground, though no impact came. Was the ground real? What was real? _I was real,_ the spirit found itself thinking, but could recall nothing else. _I was real, and I don't belong here... Who am I? Why can't I remember?_

It sobbed with fright in a voice it did not recognize as its own. Answering moans sounded from far away, echoing, drifting on the mist. There were others here. Where was here, though? A yearning drove the spirit blindly toward those weeping voices, lost as it was. It wandered, not knowing whether it traveled in lines or circles. Black shapes faded in and out of the fog, naming themselves in the spirit's mind: hill, tree, stone. The spirit glanced down at itself again, but no name entered its awareness, only a faint impression of _man_. It... he... had been a man. What was he now?

Other spirits crossed his path, some frantic, some calm; all wandering as he did, looking for something unknown. Their gazes slid over him, strange eyes in anonymous faces, features both familiar and outlandish—fur, feathers, hair, bark; hands, claws, hooves, paws. None left any footprints behind them. Some called out in languages that he could not understand, but their meaning was surely the same as what he was saying to them, in an endless litany: _Help me. Help me._

He saw, rather than felt, a tugging on his clothing. A spirit was reaching for him with insubstantial hands, grasping at the level of his knees; he recoiled with a cry at the sight of its short, squat frame and the ears that hung at the sides of its head. "No!" he screamed at it. "Don't touch me! DON'T TOUCH ME!" Its wide eyes stared up at him, uncomprehending, pleading. He tore himself from it and fled.

There was no sense of time or distance, not even a body in which to feel weariness. He felt only a great sense of loss. For all he knew, he might roam for days, years, centuries in this perpetual twilit emptiness and never find what he sought, for he didn't even know what he was seeking. None of these spirits seemed to know, either, and still they all wandered.

No... not all of them wandered. Two figures, a human man and a giant woman, sat on the ground together. Their complexions were exotic, pale; the man's hair gleamed like silver, and the giant woman's face was covered with strange designs, like ravens' wings. Both wore armor, as though they had been in battle, yet they looked comfortable—at peace, somehow, in this place. Had they given up their search? Did they know something that he did not? He approached them. "Who are you?" he asked them. "Why... why am I here? Please—I can't remember. I don't know."

The woman's hand reached out to him, swallowing his much smaller one. The gesture was comforting, even though he could not feel her touch. "I'm Yngvild," she said, "and this is Nicholas."

"You're in the Domain of the Lost," Nicholas told him. "You're dead."

"I think... I think I knew that," the spirit said. "But why..."

"Your death must have been traumatic, or you wouldn't be here." Yngvild's voice was tinged with pity. "But it'll be all right. You must find your name, and who you were. Then you may go on to where you're supposed to be."

"Is that what you did?" The spirit was puzzled. "If you have your names... why are you still here?"

Nicholas looked up into Yngvild's face. Their eyes shone with tenderness at one another. "We wouldn't be parted from each other," Nicholas said softly, "so we choose to remain here. She belongs with the Raven Spirit, and I with the gods, but..." He sighed. "The gods are gone. There's nowhere I'd rather be, but with her."

"I belong with you," Yngvild said, shaking her head. "Raven would understand."

"What do you mean... the gods are gone?"

"They are no longer in the Mists," said Nicholas. "Their appointed servants remain, though. Their realms go on without them."

The spirit felt that he might cry, though he had no tears to spill. "Kormir..." he whispered. "My Goddess..." The feeling of loss intensified, and the spirit made an abortive movement of his fingers toward his opposite wrist, as though to touch something that should have been there.

"Don't worry." Yngvild tilted her head to the side. "If you loved your gods, they'll have a place for you. Grenth's Judge will guide you to your eternal rest, once you have found yourself."

"How?" the spirit asked. "What am I looking for? How do I find it?"

"I can't say." Nicholas shrugged in sympathy. "It's different for everyone."

"Be strong," Yngvild said. "Have courage."

The spirit nodded and turned away from the ghostly lovers. The way they appeared at rest together—one large and one small, so different from each other and yet the same—seemed familiar to him in some way. The spirit no longer had a living, beating heart, but still he ached, in the place where it would be.

* * *

When he had wandered for another hour, or a day, or an eternity, an inexplicable impulse led the spirit to kneel by a pit in the ground. Smooth stones lined the depression in the earth, calling out to his senses in a sympathetic resonance, an elemental connection. He knew these stones... could feel them in his mind, could almost hear them. He lifted them, hefting them in his hands as though gravity and weight still existed in this place. Perhaps they weren't real, but moving the stones seemed like the right thing to do.

A shock of recognition went through him when he unearthed a yellow stone buried beneath dozens of others. Writing covered it, carved in a graceful, flowing hand. _My darling Nakis, my tender Nakis, my clever Nakis..._

"Oh," Nakis cried, the feeling of loving and being loved flowing into him like an undammed stream, though his memories remained out of reach. "Oh, my love... What happened to me? How did I lose you?"

Thunder echoed around him as the mists closed in, smothering him in darkness. A flash of lightning illuminated the clouds before him, and he chased after it, knowing a sudden, powerful desperation to feel the rain on his face. Each lightning strike revealed glimpses of another memory, bright and painful, blinding with the light of the joy that he had lost.

_...My songs are rain and thunder, wind and hail..._

_...I think there's a lot I could learn from you..._

_...I would have you stay, that I might listen to your speech and your laugh..._

_...Do djinn feel love?..._

_...To carry sweetness with you, when I am not nearby..._

_...In the name of all Six Gods, I bind myself to you..._

_...It may be selfish of me... I couldn't refuse you..._

_...We're going to protect each other, no matter what..._

_...I could share the load..._

_...Now, I believe that I was lucky..._

_...As you wish, my Nakis..._

_...We'll find an island paradise with clear rivers and sunny beaches..._

_...Is the music of the waves not the most alluring song your mortal ears have ever heard?..._

_...There, I've claimed our territory..._

_...If you harm him again I will not hesitate to destroy you..._

_...Forget about them..._

_...Yes, my Nakis, oh—my darling!..._

_...You will not touch him! I won't let you take him!_

Images of remembered pain and fury tore into him, the knowledge bitter and irrevocable. "Those monsters," Nakis said in a moan. "The asura... they were going to— No, no, no—!" He sprinted across the featureless landscape, not knowing where he was going, yet certain in his destination. He had to speak with Grenth's Judge.

He drifted to a halt in an empty space among the withered trees and shadowy murk. The clearing's only occupant was a woman with yellow eyes and unearthly pale skin, robed in dark splendor and bearing an antlered crown on her shining red-black hair. She looked down at Nakis with a cool, imposing gaze that made him drop to his knees. "Your faith in the gods will be rewarded, noble spirit," the woman intoned. "Step forward, and I will see you to your final reward."

"Please," Nakis begged her, "I need to find out what happened to Zohaqan, I need to know if he's safe—"

The woman inclined her chin upward. "I see you clearly now, Nakis. You have lived a generous life in honor of Kormir, and never allowed your song to be silenced, even unto the end."

Nakis hung his head. "I couldn't save them... I couldn't help the dying exiles, or the other prisoners. I couldn't protect Zohaqan." He gasped and cried without true breath. "I failed him."

"You did not fail," the woman said. "He does not need your protection... But I see that you cannot rest until you know of his fate." Nakis glanced up at her. "Your captors did not succeed in binding him," she continued, "and you need not fear that they will harm him. _He_ is the one who wreaks violence and harm."

"Who?" Nakis demanded. "Who's going to harm Zohaqan?"

She shook her head. "You misunderstand. The Spirit of the Storm is angry. Wounded. He has sent many to their deaths, and with every life he takes, he does harm to his own spirit." Her expression remained cold, with neither malice nor compassion. "Kormir's library is open to you, Nakis. You are free to dwell there, if you would be close to your Goddess's teachings."

"I have to see him," Nakis whispered. "He's hurting. He needs me."

"Wanting is not the same as needing, child." The woman had not raised her voice, but Nakis fell silent, chagrined. "Nevertheless, now that you have reclaimed the knowledge of yourself, your spirit is no longer bound here. You may yet be able to appear to your djinn, if there is still enough of a bond to guide your spirit back to him—though I cannot say whether he will be receptive to your presence."

Nakis leaned forward. "You mean, I could... go back? As a ghost?"

"There are places where the veil between worlds is thin," the woman said with a nod. "Your journey will be perilous, for there is no protection for you outside the sanctuaries of the gods. None may save you from those that would devour you."

"I'll take my chances," Nakis said. "If there's any way that I could be with him again..." His voice trembled with warring hope and fear. "I have to try."

"Know that even should you find him, you will not be able to love each other as you did before, with your whole heart." Her yellow eyes gleamed. "Your heart and your flesh are in the eternal keeping of the Prince of Winter. They are no longer yours to give away." She waved a hand in a gesture of dismissal. "Your spirit is your own, however. Go where you may in the land of the living, but be wary of the danger." She spoke no more. Nakis bowed deeply to her and left the clearing.

A bond, the Judge had said. If there was enough of a bond to guide his spirit back to Zohaqan... How would he find it? Nakis didn't know, but felt sure that he would, somehow, no matter how long it took—he had all the time in the world, now. What was one more eternity of wandering, to a ghost? He had his name; he had his purpose. His spirit was free.

He started walking.


	14. Confrontation

The weather had finally calmed, for now. Efi ducked out from the shelter of the eaves of Lorekeeper Rhosan's house, tightening the straps of her new handwoven bandolier that the Commander had given her. The Commander was really nice, and brave, and strong—like Mom had been. Efi closed her eyes, breathing slowly the way the Lorekeeper had taught her. _In and out. Grief is an ocean, and its waves will never cease to wash over you, but your breath will bear you back to shore._

As she walked through the village, gazing around at the driftwood that the storm had blown in, Efi sang under her breath. Her voice was scratchy and unsteady under the weight of unshed tears, the notes wavering out of tune. " _As shadows fall, the sun only rises higher..._ " Some of her neighbors nodded to her in somber greeting, but she didn't stop to chat. She had a mission to do.

The sandshifters were busily clearing wreckage from the village walkways, repairing damaged structures and speaking to one another in quiet, worried tones. Efi heard the name _Zohaqan_ whispered several times, and she thought about what the Commander had told her before this most recent storm. The grown-ups had just come back from a raid on the Inquest facility to sabotage as much equipment as they could, and to recover their dead—if there were any remains to find. "What you heard about the djinn wanting revenge on the Inquest was true," the Commander had said quietly, confirming the whispered rumors Efi hadn't wanted to believe, but that she'd decided a while ago would explain the ferocious weather that still battered the island almost daily: Nature itself was punishing the Inquest for their crimes.

"Aw, poor Zohaqan." Efi had compared the storm's howling fury to the anger that boiled in her own heart. As the old song said, _The skies know no rage like love that became hate..._ "I can see why he'd go wild like that, if they killed someone he cared about. I wish I could fry some of those evil creatures with lightning bolts, too."

The Commander had nodded sadly and glanced toward the pile of stolen belongings that the grown-ups had managed to reclaim from the prison fortress, which Efi was eyeing with resignation. "You don't have to look through those things right now. Lorekeeper Rhosan will keep them safe for all the victims' families, until—whenever you're ready. Take as much time as you need, all right?"

"Yeah." Efi had cleared her throat. "Thanks for bringing back their things. Their spirits will rest easier, with something familiar nearby to... honor them." At least, that's what Ewyn had told her, when he'd talked about the proper ways of keeping vigil for the dead.

"I was glad to do whatever I could." The Commander's parting salute to her had been no different to the outlanders' gestures of respect toward the village elders, with a softening about the eyes that conveyed camaraderie rather than pity. It hadn't been comforting, exactly, but Efi had appreciated it all the same. "Take care, Efi." Those words had been an order as much as a farewell, telling her to stay in the village, to stay safe.

She straightened her spine taller, continuing to sing softly as she approached the edge of the village, her hackles rising in determination. Warriors didn't stay where it was safe when there were people who needed protecting. Now that Efi had a bandolier just like the village protectors wore, she was a real warrior, not a helpless rabbit huddling in her den while hyenas snapped their jaws outside. She was going to find Zohaqan—whether the grown-ups wanted her to or not—and tell that crazy djinn to stop hurting her friends and her kin. Whatever the Elders and the Commander had already been doing to try to stop Zohaqan wasn't working, so obviously it was up to her to fix this problem for them. For her village.

Efi glanced around to make sure no one saw her go out the village gates, then scurried into the cover of the trees. She'd have to be back before dinnertime so the Lorekeeper wouldn't worry about her absence, even though it was silly for Rhosan to worry. Efi could look out for herself and she wasn't dumb. She had been listening to what Elder Yowen and Elder Rhona had been saying about the storm djinn, and knew where to find him: a cave on the eastern shore, close to the beach under the cliffs. She would find it easily and safely enough. There were hardly any predators up there, and Efi could run fast if she needed to, anyway. Old Stonehoof wouldn't be able to catch her if he reared his ugly horns anywhere near her.

If she'd had her own skimmer, like Olwyn's dad had, she could have gotten to this cave a lot faster. Efi kicked a rock over the side of the cliff, making a nearby eagle griffon flutter its wings and screech in irritation. "Sorry," Efi mumbled to it. It settled back down to peck at its lunch, a crab gripped between its talons.

Mom had taught her how to follow tracks, but Efi didn't need to be a genius hunter to see all the pawprints around where the elders and guards had fought against Zohaqan's storm elementals; this whole place was a mess. Sniffing at the ground, she looked for more signs of battle: scorch marks, furrows in the sand, snapped-off arrows. When she reached a pile of scattered rocks near the entrance of a cave, Efi knew that she had found the right place. She held her beacon higher to look into the darkness of the cavern.

The cave was empty and cold. Efi couldn't hear anything except the dripping of water, the rise and fall of the ocean outside, and a low whistling that must have been the wind. Creeping around the puddles so as not to make a splash, Efi peered with interest at the bits of clay, wood, stone, and cloth that cluttered the floor. It didn't look much like a djinn's treasure hoard, but maybe the whole idea of djinn keeping treasures was just a myth. Did Zohaqan like to collect flowers? There were some petals scattered among the broken things, and a floral scent in the air here. It smelled like lilies.

When the wind blew, the flame of Efi's beacon guttered and the whistling noise got louder, sounding almost musical. Efi shielded the torch with a curled paw close to her chest as she settled on the ground, holding her tail away from the water to keep it dry. She began singing a melody that the wind brought to mind: an old lullaby of her mother's.

" _Hey, falling dewdrops from the skies,_  
_Lie down and close your sleepy eyes._  
_My eyes are sleepy, but your eyes are weepy,_  
_Listen, my dear heart, how the night wind cries._ "

The wind's sound was dropping in pitch, mournful and clear as reed pipes. The torchlight flickered on the cave walls and floor while the breeze stirred the water. Efi shivered and hunched further into her tunic, even though her fur kept away the biting chill of the air.

" _Hey, falling blossoms from the tree,_  
_Won't you go greet my love for me?_  
_Say goodbye, darling, little singing starling,_  
_Never again will I come back to see._ "

She continued humming the melody, her voice echoing in the silence now that the wind had fallen quiet. A small sound like a sob made Efi flick her ears and cut off her tune with a held breath, sure that she hadn't imagined it. "Zohaqan? Is that you?"

 _"Who... enters... my domain?"_ a voice answered in a strained whisper. Efi clutched her claws tighter around the torch.

"I'm..." She swallowed and narrowed her eyes to look around the cave, but saw nothing resembling a djinn. "I'm Efi."

The voice spoke only haltingly, as though with great effort. _"Leave me... mortal... Efi. You are... not welcome here..."_

"I'm not leaving," she stated firmly. "I came here to talk to you."

Zohaqan sighed with a breath of wind, in either pain or resignation. _"You are... a youngling. I will not... fight you. I have nothing... to say to you..."_

"Well _I_ have something to say to _you_ ," Efi responded with a snarl. "Stop wrecking our village!"

_"What gives you... the audacity... to demand anything of me?"_

Efi could guess what the question meant from the acid in Zohaqan's tone, and chose to ignore it. "It's the Inquest you're mad at, isn't it? Not us," she pressed on. "They're the ones who murdered someone you loved."

_"You are mortals... thieves... betrayers all..."_

"We're fighting the same enemy," Efi interrupted. "Don't you see? This island is our home, and we aren't going to let any monsters take it from us. That includes you, if you keep acting like a monster—but it doesn't have to be that way. If you stopped attacking us, the elders and the Commander could focus on stomping out the Inquest for good. Isn't that what you really want?"

 _"What do you care, youngling?"_ Zohaqan's disdain was evident, but his voice was full of misery, too. _"It doesn't matter what I want... when what I want will never be... Never again."_

Efi knew that feeling well. "The Inquest took somebody from me, too. My mother," she said. "I'm just as angry at them as you are. I hate them for what they did to her." Her eyes burned as tears welled in them. "I know how you feel. I _know_."

 _"No..."_ Zohaqan's voice lifted in a wail. _"You cannot know how I feel... You are too young... to understand..."_

"Did they kill your mate?" Efi asked. "Yeah, sure, I might be too young to know what it's like to have a mate, but I loved my mom. She was everything to me. So don't tell me I can't understand what love is, because that's a load of dolyak dung!" She glared at a spot on the cavern floor. "Maybe _you're_ the one who can't understand. You don't know what it's like to have a mom—" her voice broke, and she took a fortifying breath— "a mom who taught you everything you know, who cared for you ever since you were born, who comforted you when you were sad, who was always there for you—who was the one who knew and loved you the best out of anyone in the whole world. My mom loved me better than any mate could, because she didn't just love me; she made me everything I am." She clamped her jaw shut, letting her tears drip to the ground. "The love I feel isn't any less valid just because I'm a kid. If that's what you think, then for an immortal nature spirit guardian, you're pretty dumb. No offense," she added as a grudging afterthought.

The puddle beside her where her tears fell shifted slightly, ice crystals forming along its surface from the edges inward. _"You... speak truth,"_ the voice said after a while. _"I have never known... the love of a mother... for her child. Yet I know well how fiercely mortals can love... and I cannot deny how deeply you care... for your lost one. Your tears are bitter."_

Efi sat silently for several moments, watching the lines of freezing water sparkle in the firelight as her anger faded back into despondency. "I'm sorry about your loss, too," she said, with a note of reluctant apology. "You must have loved your mate a lot."

 _"Yes,"_ Zohaqan said hollowly, _"I loved him... But he is mine... no longer. He broke his oath... to me..."_

Suddenly shy, Efi hesitated before asking, "Would you—would you tell me about him? What was he like?"

A low, rolling sound like thunder rumbled the walls of the cavern. _"He was... light... brightness and laughter... warmth and fire... like the golden sun after which this land is named."_

"Was he a fire djinn?"

_"No... a human man."_

"Huh." Efi hadn't expected that, but she supposed there was no accounting for taste.

Zohaqan continued in a softer voice, _"He had such clever hands... such smiling lips... such a gentle heart, that joined with mine in song..."_

"What was his name?"

A soft, sobbing wind riffled the puddles on the floor. _"My Nakis..."_

"Nakis?" Efi looked down in surprise at where a mote of light glimmered in the water. " _Nakis_ was your mate?"

 _"You... knew him?"_ Efi nodded, recalling the kind human stranger who had taught his songs to the village cubs. All those times he had joked and played with them on market days, and she had never guessed that he'd had a mate... a _djinn_ mate, no less. But now that she thought about it, she remembered some of the grown-ups talking about Nakis and Zohaqan arriving on the island together. It was so sad to know that he would never play music in the village again.

"I didn't know him very well," she said. "He would sing and play games with all of us... But I never really talked to him." She purred in thought, scraping her claws absently under her chin. "Mom and I sang a song for him once—when I learned all the words to 'Hope for Tomorrow.' He was good at singing."

 _"That also, I loved in him,"_ Zohaqan admitted quietly. _"I believe my heart was lost to him... when first I heard him sing. He said that he would teach me every mortal song he knew... Another vow that he left unfulfilled."_ His voice grew stronger, rising in a groan of plaintive bitterness. _"How could he have let me know such sweetness... such tenderness and passion, such heights of bliss... and then leave me to suffer an eternity... without the touch of his hand? How dared he make me love him so,"_ he cried, _"how dared he ever claim to love me, when he has ruined me—when he has ripped the heart from me—!"_

The ground trembled, sending rocks clattering from the cave ceiling. Efi pressed back against the wall and covered her head, waiting for the earthquake to subside. "It's not fair, is it?" she grumbled when the shaking stopped. "Nakis and Mom aren't suffering any more, but we are. We're both still here. We'll keep suffering for the rest of our lives—and they won't even know it. Their spirits get to rest somewhere in the Mists, their bodies will return to the earth and feed nature's new growth... and meanwhile we're left behind to pick up the pieces. To try to figure out how to keep on living when they're gone."

 _"At least you will be able to rejoin your mother one day, when your own spirit leaves this world,"_ Zohaqan retorted. _"I cannot choose but to go on living, as the rain cannot choose but to fall... even though it is unbearable agony."_ The wind whistled sharply, then died down again. _"Tell me, mortal Efi... why do you choose to live at all? How can you choose life, when you know how it will end? How can you bear to find joy in living—how can you bear to love—when you know that every delight you experience will soon be lost to you forever?"_ The trickling waters ran down the walls of the cave like tears. Efi pondered for a while, but came no closer to an answer.

"I don't know," she said softly. "That's just the way nature is, isn't it? Everything alive fights to keep on living, even when it doesn't make sense. You didn't choose to fall in love with Nakis, did you? It just happened. I bet you couldn't stop loving him if you tried—even though you probably knew it was a dumb idea to love a mortal." As soon as she had spoken, she bit her tongue, wondering if that last insult would be the one that would get her blasted out of Zohaqan's cave. The djinn didn't rise to the unintended slight on his intelligence, though; instead, he sighed.

 _"Perhaps it was fated that I should love him,"_ Zohaqan whispered. _"Only fate would be so cruel as to place such perfection in my path, and then deny it to me for the remainder of all time. Yet how could it be fated... for an innocent to suffer and perish at the hands of such evil, to punish a folly that was wholly mine? It is senseless... it is madness..."_

"Yeah," Efi growled, her tail twitching. "It doesn't make any sense. Why'd _they_ have to die, instead of someone who deserved it? Why'd the Inquest have to come here and ruin everything?" She pawed and kicked at some rocks that had tumbled down from the ceiling, feeling the need to lash out, to break something. "I don't think it was fate, or destiny, or nature's grand design, or whatever. I don't think everything happens for a reason... I think that when the Inquest killed my mom, and Nakis, and all those other people, it was for no reason at all." She fell silent again, stewing in grief that, even when shared with a kindred spirit, became no easier to bear.

The Lorekeeper was always saying that revenge hurt oneself more than one's enemies, and forgiveness was the only path to peace, but it was still satisfying to imagine it: the Inquest screaming and bleeding, Mom's arrows piercing into their poisonous little hearts, the avenging spirits of their ancestors delivering justice to the cruel oppressors. The Inquest _deserved_ to be punished, and why should Efi wish for peace with them? She'd never forgive those monsters for what they did to Mom. _Never._

"You're right—they don't deserve your forgiveness. They don't care about being forgiven, anyway," Rhosan had said in response. Her voice had been low and gentle, even when all Efi had wanted to do was scream. "But forgiveness isn't about them; it's about us. Once we are able to forgive, only then can we begin to heal."

"What if I don't want to heal? Warriors shouldn't need to heal." Moisture had dripped unpleasantly off Efi's muzzle and into her fur, tangling it into clumps. She'd given up on wiping the tears and snot away every time she cried, since there would always be more. "Warriors are supposed to be strong. They're supposed to keep fighting even when they're hurt really bad."

"You're already strong, Efi... and you'll still be strong no matter what you're feeling." The Lorekeeper had laid her paw on Efi's with a rumbling growl. "Healing doesn't mean forgetting. You'll never stop being sad and angry about losing someone you love. But one day, you will feel some happiness and warmth again when you remember your mother, even if all you can feel right now is the hurt."

Zohaqan's voice echoed across her thoughts. _"You asked me... whether the destruction of these... Inquest... is what I want,"_ the djinn murmured. _"My hatred remains undiminished. Had I the strength, I would flood the desert... I would burn cities to ashes... I would drain the sea and level the mountains... to punish the ones who wronged me."_ Efi nodded grimly in agreement. _"I have destroyed much,"_ Zohaqan went on. _"I have inflicted suffering upon your people, and I am not sorry for it... for I do not have the capacity to feel sorrow any longer. My heart is gone, you see."_

"I think you're lying," said Efi. "If you didn't have a heart, you wouldn't feel hate or pain or anger, either. And you obviously feel those things, a lot."

 _"Perhaps,"_ said Zohaqan, though he sounded like he doubted it. _"I nevertheless will not apologize for what I have done."_

"No," said Efi, "I didn't think you would. But I still want to make a deal with you."

The speck of light she had been watching on the ground grew larger and brighter. Before her gaze, vapor slowly swirled up from the puddle in a shimmering cloud that began to take a recognizable shape: four arms, waist and chest, a head with two flaring eyes. Zohaqan spoke clearly, his words somehow easier to hear now, even though Efi saw no mouth to shape them. "What are your terms for this deal?"

"I don't think you actually want to keep attacking us." Efi met Zohaqan's eyes with undisguised curiosity. "If you agree to stop, though... I promise I'll come here every day to talk to you."

The djinn's form, transparent and delicate as morning mist, sank to the ground with a wearied sigh. "And why do you think I would accept such a bargain from you?"

Efi shrugged. "Because you're tired, and in pain. Because I miss Nakis too, and you're the only one who can sing his story, and I want to hear it." She squinted at him. "But mostly because... I think you could use a friend."

"You are a bold one," Zohaqan hissed. "Presumptuous, and more than a little foolish, to speak so familiarly with one whom you would be wiser to fear."

She displayed her fangs in a predator's grin. "Thunderstorms don't scare me."

The djinn tilted his head in the same way a bird might when inspecting something it found strange. "Fortunately for you, it would sit ill with me to strike down a youngling, no matter how bothersome a pest she may be." He paused while Efi continued staring him down. "I will accept your terms, mortal Efi," he rumbled at last. "I will do as you request... if only for Nakis's sake." Efi stuck out her right paw to shake and Zohaqan touched his long-fingered palm to it. "That does not make me your friend, however, nor you mine."

Efi nodded and got up to leave. "Fair enough." She turned back to look at the djinn from the mouth of the cavern. "Bye, Zohaqan. Talk to you soon." Zohaqan said nothing as she scurried away, though the wind whistled a low note as it blew past Efi's ears. It might have been a coincidence, but she'd swear it sounded like a skeptical hum.

Clouds loomed at the edges of the sky with the threat of another storm, yet didn't blow any closer to the village as Efi wended her way home. As she sneaked back through Atholma's gates, Efi decided to wait until the truce with Zohaqan held for a few more days before reporting the success of her mission to the Commander—just in case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Efi's mom's lullaby is a loose translation of two verses from " _Hej padá, padá rosička_ ," a Slovak folksong.
> 
> My mood while writing this segment: ["All I was doing was breathing"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBHmD51xo6c)—a gorgeous setting by David L. Brunner of 16th-century mystic Meera's impassioned and sensual words of devotion to the divine, whom she named "the Dancing Energy," "Mountain-Lifter."


	15. Out of the Rift

The Mists encompass all worlds and the voids between them, reality and space, memory and time. They are not infinite, nor are they completely unchartable, but those who wander within the Mists find that worldly navigation only serves so far. Thoughts and intentions, rather than lines, often form the shortest path between two points. A whole realm may exist within a single grain of sand, its entrance impossible to locate by normal means. A brief walk from one shard of the Mists to another may take days, years, or no time at all. No sextant, watch, or compass are of any use there; instead, bonds of familiarity tug at a traveler's soul, like magnets on a needle.

Nakis was no sage or shaman with knowledge of the pathways through the Mists. Without a guide, he knew his only hope of reentering the mortal realm was to find a preexisting doorway. Zohaqan had spoken of one such portal to the Mists in the far north of the Crystal Desert where Elona's first human rulers were entombed, protected by ancient spirit guardians. The djinn had said that these spirits only allowed passage into the Mists to those who held the favor of the gods, but Nakis hoped that maybe it was not as strictly guarded from the other side.

He asked every spirit he encountered about where he might find this doorway. "I'm looking for the way to the Tomb of the Primeval Kings. Do you know anything about it?" He addressed a human spirit whose facial features seemed Elonian, though she wore strange, old-fashioned garb. Perhaps she had died a longer time ago than the others he had met so far.

"Begone, young man," she snapped. "You are interrupting my research. Find some other scholar to bother with your questions."

"Don't mind her," a man in similar clothing whispered to Nakis. "Scholar Zelkun doesn't know she's dead, you see. Come, let's leave her to her ramblings." The old spirit patted the dusty ground beside him. "I am Scholar Dakkun. What is it you seek, young one?"

Nakis folded his legs to sit next to Dakkun. "Do you know where I can find the portal to the Tomb of the Primeval Kings?"

"Hmm," said Dakkun, stroking his chin. "Yes, I might know about that. Why are you looking for it, though? The last I heard, the Zaishen Order was guarding the entrance to the Rift to keep it from being overrun with demons." He frowned at Nakis's crestfallen expression. "Don't fret, my boy. Perhaps the way to it is clear now. In what year of Dynastic reckoning did you pass into the Mists?"

"Um," said Nakis, calculating, "I think the year was... 1530? No, 1531."

"Ah, my news is a few centuries old, then." The scholar peered at him with curiosity. "Tell me, how did humanity survive the demonic incursion?" Dakkun waved a hand at the other scholar, who was muttering to herself and miming the action of writing on a scroll. "Zelkun and I were slaughtered by demons when they invaded Prince Mehtu's palace. I lost track of the time since, but I suppose the world didn't end after all?"

"Oh," said Nakis, "that must've been right before the Ascension of Kormir." His voice took on a solemn tone as he summarized the scriptures that he had learned as a young boy at his mother's knee. "The blessed Spearmarshal led the crusade against the demons, and defeated the dark god, and took upon herself the mantle of the Goddess of Truth. Thus by mortal hands did a new immortal enter creation." He reflexively reached for his wrist before remembering with a pang that there was nothing there to touch. Why was it that his spirit form was whole, uninjured, and clothed as his living self had been, yet he was without his prayer beads? Nakis would rather have still been missing half of his leg.

"Kormir," Dakkun repeated, astonishment lighting his eyes. "The Istani Sunspear? How remarkable! Goddess of Truth, you say... Imagine that."

Nakis leaned forward with impatience. "So where is the portal? You said something about a rift?"

Dakkun nodded. "The Rift is the center of all things—the point of perfect balance between all forces in the universe. The gateway you seek is one of several that were opened into the Rift many hundreds of years ago."

"How do I get to this Rift?"

"You will find it eventually if you truly seek it," the scholar said cryptically. "There is nothing in the Mists to which the Rift does not connect." No further explanation seemed forthcoming.

"I... see." Nakis stood up and bowed to Dakkun to hide his disappointment. "Thank you, Scholar," he said politely. "May Kormir enlighten you."

"May Lyssa aid you," Dakkun replied with a benevolent smile and wave before returning to Zelkun's side. "Zelkun! I just learned something marvelous. Do you remember Spearmarshal Kormir?"

"Hush your chatter, Dakkun, you pest," she griped. "Fetch me more ink if you want to make yourself useful." Nakis didn't hear Dakkun's reply as he hurried away from the long-dead scholars to resume his search.

* * *

He wandered through landscapes of unimaginable expanse, wider than the desert, more vast than the unending ocean. He saw fields that teemed with throngs of souls, and eerily empty courtyards, where a light that was not sunlight streamed through prisms of floating crystal. All the while he remained on watch for danger, wary of any beings that made their home in this unearthly place. He hid himself in shadows when he could, and strode in the light of blazing flames when he sensed dark creatures prowling at the edges of his sight. Nakis never crossed the same path twice, though he began to despair of ever recognizing the way to the Rift. How could he hope to find a location that lay adjacent to _everywhere?_

"Kormir, show me the way," he whispered. Prayer grounded him, even in the face of the knowledge that the gods were no longer there to answer. Prayer is a kind of intention, a focusing of will toward one's goal. The Mists themselves bend around the strength of conviction. Had Nakis not known that the Goddess was absent, he would have sworn that he heard a voice urging him onward, whispering a song of comfort to his faltering spirit. _The power is within you to find what you seek._

Nakis stepped over a rocky rise to see a valley spread out before him. The ground was silver-gray, shining with flecks of glittering dust. Each step Nakis took down the hill should have kicked up puffs of the fine powder, but it lay still and undisturbed—for of course there was no weight to Nakis's footfalls, nor was there any air to stir the flakes of dirt.

The valley was not silent, however. A susurrus of voices arose from a host of human spirits. They stood arrayed as a legion, some wearing shining plate mail and helmets, others cloaked in brightly patterned robes. All of them faced a plinth on which a disc of swirling fog glowed between two metallic spires. A few ghosts seemed to be shouting commands to direct the troops on the ground; marching four abreast in an orderly formation, they stepped through the portal and vanished. Nakis watched the procession, fascinated, before hurrying to approach a phalanx of troops standing at parade rest near the back of the mustering ground. "Ahai," he called to a soldier who was patrolling behind the others. She stopped and turned appraising eyes on him. "What's going on here? Is there a war beyond that portal?"

"Through that gate is the way to a fierce battle," said the soldier, "where the Twin Queens have joined forces with the living Sunspears and other mortal heroes to put an end to Palawa Joko. Queen Nadijeh sends us to bolster their numbers."

"Huh?" Nakis gaped at her in bewilderment, wondering for a moment if she was another one of those ghosts who didn't realize they were dead. For all he knew, she might be speaking of some ancient war that had ended hundreds of years in the past. "Who's Queen Nadijeh?" The name sounded vaguely familiar.

"My Queen is the founder of the Sunspear Guard, established during her reign in what living Elonians now call the Primeval Dynasty."

"You're from the Primeval Dynasty?" Nakis glanced back to the portal in dawning excitement. "Then that must be the way to the Tomb of the Primeval Kings! Wait a second, you said— _living_ Sunspears?" Surprise felt different now that Nakis was a ghost. Shock stole over him in a cold wave, rather than the burst of adrenaline that used to heat his mortal blood. "You're battling against _Palawa Joko?_ Joko the Inevitable, the Undying—we're talking about the same King Joko here? The Scourge of Vabbi? The Last Primeval King?"

"He is no Primeval King," the soldier scoffed. "He arose centuries after our royal line perished with the Twin Queens. But he has called himself such, yes, and proclaimed many other falsehoods besides, to secure his power over those he conquered." She tilted her head. "You must have been among the living not so long ago, to know him by those titles. Would it interest you to hear recent news of the mortal realm?"

Nakis backed up a couple of steps and brought his hands to his head, shaking it in stunned disbelief, then nodding in answer to her question. "Please, tell me everything." The soldier told him.

"Palawa Joko has been a scourge on the lands of Elona for too long," she began. "But now he has obtained a disastrous weapon from a group of wicked alchemists who were experimenting with all manner of vile things. Do you know of the Scarab Plague?" Nakis shook his head. "It is a contagion that swept through Elona and wiped out my people a thousand years ago."

Nakis's eyes widened in horror. "How did King Joko get his hands on it?"

"Joko wrought his foul necromancy to bind the asura alchemists, the Inquest, to serve him," the soldier said with a scowl. "As we speak, he is using his undead puppets to spread the same pestilence that left our dynasty in ruins. Soon, this blight may consume the world as it once consumed my homeland... The Inquest have already beleaguered the island home of a tribe of charr, who are now our allies in this war. Other nations may not fare as well as the Olmakhan have against Joko's forces."

"Olmakhan?" Nakis jumped at the name. "Those are my friends! The Inquest... They must be the same asura who—who murdered me."

Her eyes lowered in sympathy. "If you died at their hands, then you must have as much reason as we do to seek their destruction." She pointed past the assembled ghost army to the portal that led out of the Mists. "Our allies have opened a gateway that will take us from the Tomb to the forward camp at the front lines of Gandara, where we prepare for battle against the lich-king, his Inquest minions, and his plague-beasts. Perhaps you wish to join us on our march?"

"I'm no soldier," Nakis said awkwardly. "But—I have some skill with elemental magic. I want to help you in any way I can." The secret histories whispered in Nakis's village told of mighty heroes who, in a previous age, had subdued the Scourge of Vabbi and locked him deep within the earth. Zohaqan had assured Nakis all those months ago that there existed some force in the world with greater power than Palawa Joko. What better weapon against a lich-king than an army of the dead, whose bodies were out of his reach and couldn't be Awakened? "If you really think you can defeat King Joko—"

"I do," the soldier said, her eyes glinting. "The Sunspears have rallied once more, when most thought them long since crushed under Joko's oppression. And they say that the mortal commander who leads this campaign has done the impossible before, even in the face of certain defeat... I believe that with the aid of such allies, we stand a chance of righting this wrong at last."

Standing up straighter, Nakis laid a fist across his chest. "In that case, I would pledge myself to help you in this battle."

The ghostly soldier mirrored his salute. "We would be glad to have you, but I must warn you of the consequences of such a pledge." Her ethereal brow furrowed slightly. "Though you and I are already dead, we face great danger nonetheless. If we fail, Joko will likely consign us to oblivion, or worse." She regarded him with grave seriousness. "Are you prepared to give up your soul? To give up all you have left?"

Nakis thought of his family, who had lived and labored for generations under Joko's rule. He thought of all the Olmakhan children and their parents, his friends, whom the Inquest had threatened to destroy without reason or remorse. Most of all, he thought of Zohaqan—but he remembered also what Grenth's Judge had said to him, in her knowing, icy tone that had stripped his selfish desires bare. _He does not need your protection._

"It's too late to stop what the Inquest did to me," Nakis said softly, "but—I can still fight to protect the ones I love. To defend those who can't defend themselves. Maybe I can help them keep their lives and their homes, even though I lost mine."

The soldier bowed her head to Nakis. "Your valor honors this company." She looked ahead to the portal as the rows of troops continued their slow procession into the realm of the living. "You've reminded me of something that I heard the mortal Commander's troops say to one another: ' _Some must fight, so that all may be free._ ' A fitting call to arms, don't you think?"

"Yes," agreed Nakis, falling into step with the other soldiers. "May we all be free someday."

"Forward, Sunspears!" cried the leader of the column. The ghost battalion roared back in an echoing cacophony.

"We fight for Queen Nadijeh! For the Sunspears!"

" _For the Sunspears!_ "

"For Elona! For life and freedom!"

Nakis joined in the swell of voices. " _We never fight alone!_ "


	16. Shadow and Sun

True to her word, the charr cub called Efi returned to Zohaqan's cave each day to speak with him, little though he wanted her to. He neither understood nor cared why the child had believed her offer of company to be a fair exchange for his ceasing the assault on her village. If Zohaqan had wished to demand tribute from the Olmakhan, Efi would have been in no position to negotiate the terms of their surrender—surely she was much too young to hold any sort of authority as an envoy of her people. Her elders probably didn't even know that she had come here. Despite the keenness of her gaze, the proudness of her bearing, and the oversized war-sash she wore across her chest, Efi posed no more threat to Zohaqan than a mayfly; the trappings of adulthood only served to further emphasize how small and powerless she really was. The twenty-eighth time the cub sauntered into his cave, Zohaqan acknowledged her presence with a grumble. "I thought I told you yesterday not to come back here, mortal Efi."

"And I thought I said that I'd keep coming to see you anyway." She blinked up at him in calm defiance.

"Were you not a youngling, I would have exacted payment for your insolence many times over." Zohaqan's threat, as always, left her unfazed. "I have set no more storms against you. Why will you not leave me in peace?" 

Efi flopped down onto the cave floor. "Lorekeeper Rhosan says that mourners shouldn't be left alone, even when they say they want to be."

Zohaqan glared at her. "I am not a mourner."

"Hmm," Efi said noncommittally. "You look like you're in mourning to me."

"I am a djinn. I am not subject to the customs of your people."

"Don't djinn have any customs about mourning the dead?" At Zohaqan's pointed silence, the cub shrugged. "Even immortals can still lose people or things you love. Are you saying djinn don't have funerals or wakes? Memorials?"

"Commemoration is a mortal concept," Zohaqan said. "You have such ceremonies to carry forward the stories of those who have departed, so that you will not forget them—but djinn have long memories. We may perfectly recall events that occurred thousands of years ago, and will continue to remember them for thousands of years to come." He scoffed. "It would be pointless for us to memorialize anything."

Efi cocked her head. "So... how would a djinn say goodbye to a friend you're never going to see again? Or a home that got destroyed, or a prized possession that you lost?"

Zohaqan thought for a moment while Efi continued regarding him with blithe inquisitiveness. "To say goodbye is to acknowledge an ending, is it not? To accept that something is gone, perhaps forever?"

The cub nodded. "Yeah, I guess so."

"To djinn, time is immaterial. Mortals must constantly acknowledge endings, because you are so short-lived and frail, but djinn outlast many things that mortals think of as _forever_." He laughed bitterly. "As an immortal, I am ill-accustomed to permanent goodbyes. I have never uttered a farewell as mortals would, with a sense of... finality. It's something I've never had reason to consider before—the permanence of death. Of everlasting loss."

Efi hunched her shoulders and looked down. "I haven't really accepted it, either," she mumbled. "I don't know how much good it did for us to have a funeral and say goodbye to Mom when I still... I still forget, sometimes, that she isn't here." She swallowed. "Then it hurts all over again when I remember."

"Yes," Zohaqan agreed. "The pain is always fresh."

"Did Nakis ever..." Efi spoke his name quietly, as though to soften the blow of invoking it in Zohaqan's hearing. "Did he ever say how he wanted to... um... be remembered?" She glanced up, awkwardly rubbing the back of one paw across her muzzle. "We had a short memorial service for all the dead who weren't Olmakhan, 'cause we didn't know how they would've..." She trailed off. "Our lorekeeper tried to find everyone's next of kin and ask them what they wanted to do, but Nakis didn't have anyone except you, and—uh—well. You weren't in the mood to talk to them, I know."

"You buried his remains?" Zohaqan didn't care what had happened to the husk that used to be Nakis, but perhaps Nakis would have wanted—something, surely. Zohaqan had never thought to ask. Would the man have wanted his body wrapped in linens and purifying oils, laid in the earth and consigned to Grenth's care? Would he have wanted someone to pray for him? Sing for him? How Nakis's spirit could find rest after his body had suffered such defilement and horror, Zohaqan didn't know, but it wouldn't matter now by any means. His ghost was not here to advocate for him.

"They didn't find... there weren't any bodies," Efi said with a cough, "but the Commander found something that might've belonged to him... a bracelet? We laid it on the memorial with the other things. It's in a cave north of here, if you want to... if you want to see it."

Zohaqan turned away. "I have no claim over what was once his. I am not his kin."

"Of course you are," Efi insisted. "You were his mate—that makes you his family. Closer than his human one, even. Uh... did he have any human family?"

"He did not often speak of them," Zohaqan said. "After his exile, he had to leave them behind in Palawa Joko's kingdom." Perhaps they had already mourned their lost son, believing him to be long since swallowed by the desert sands. "Had he died there, the lich-king might have stolen his bones to make him a slave in death as well as in life... But I think he would not have wanted that."

"Ugh. I wouldn't want that either." Efi shuddered. "So... what _do_ you think he would have wanted? For his burial?"

When he was alive, Nakis had wanted sunlight and sea breeze, the scent of growing things, the taste of wine, the touch of Zohaqan's hands on his skin. Nakis had desired those things with his body; what desires would now remain, when his soul was stripped from his flesh and blood? So little of what mortals dreamed and wished for in life persisted beyond their death. "I don't know." Zohaqan stared at the shifting patterns of reflected light on the cavern walls, water on stone. "I think... I am beginning to see that in many ways, I never truly knew him."

The cub's whiskers quivered as she sniffed. "I miss him too, you know." Zohaqan said nothing in reply.

On some days, Efi and Zohaqan did not speak at all. When frigid winds made frost rime the walls of Zohaqan's cave, Efi sat and listened in silence while he cried, her presence the only thing that stayed his hands from violence, for he could not break his oath to her. When she left each day, without a word, Efi would take one or two pieces of wreckage from the cavern floor. She tucked them into the pockets of her bandolier, collecting them to lay in tribute on the Olmakhan memorial for the dead: a fragment of ceramic vase, a gnarled branch, a wilted petal, a shard of glass from which the essence of lily had long since faded. Bit by bit, she swept up the remnants of Nakis's life and carried them away, as though to remove the evidence of the catastrophe that had befallen him. But djinn have long memories, and Zohaqan couldn't forget what had transpired here, much as he would have wished to. The passage of months by mortal reckoning would do nothing to dull his grief; time, after all, heals only mortal wounds.

* * *

On the day of the cub's eighty-seventh visitation, Zohaqan shifted wearily to spread out his form against the floor. Efi frowned at him. "I know you don't _need_ to sleep," she said, eyeing him with worry, "but you look so tired. Like you haven't rested since..." She did not finish her sentence.

It was true. "I have not slept since that day," Zohaqan conceded, though he failed to see how his refusal to sleep was any concern of hers.

"Do you want to?"

"No," he lied. Efi shook her head with a pitying expression. "I cannot succumb to rest," he insisted. "Whether in a hundred years, or a thousand, I will awaken to find all mortal memory of—" He couldn't bring himself to utter the name. "All memory of him erased, as though he had never been." He crossed two arms and buried his head in his other two palms. "I couldn't bear it. I have to remember."

"You deserve to rest, Zohaqan," Efi said. "Let the world carry his memory for you. You can sleep for a while."

"No!"

"Are you worried that if you sleep, you'll have bad dreams?"

"No," he repeated curtly. "As a djinn, I may lie dormant for centuries without any awareness of it."

Efi crept closer to him with a purr of inquiry. "You don't dream?"

Zohaqan harrumphed. "Dreams are a necessity for minds housed in mortal flesh. They are a quirk that arises from having a delicate and volatile brain, which must always be actively processing the input of your senses, even when you are insensate. Unconscious," he added when Efi wrinkled her nose in confusion. "Djinn do have hopes, desires, visions—you might call them dreams. But only when we are awake."

"That makes sense," said Efi. "To you, all dreams are daydreams..." She sighed. "So you never have nightmares, huh? Must be nice."

Zohaqan's voice was brittle as the ice that outlined the cracks in the floor. "If sorrow and pain affect a waking mind, that is also called a nightmare."

"Hmm, I guess you're right. I'm sorry." Efi lowered her head, her ears twitching in thought as she frowned. "I... had a dream last night. About Mom."

A momentary flicker of sympathy for the youngling surprised Zohaqan from his own thoughts. "Dreams often mean less than mortals think they do," he said after a pause. "Speak your nightmare, mortal Efi, if it would help you to forget it."

"It wasn't really a nightmare. I don't know why I feel like it was bad," Efi said, her frown deepening. "In the dream, she was whole... like it was a mistake that she had died. Like all the horrible things that happened to her were just a fluke, and everything was back to normal. But she still wasn't... alive." The cub shook her head, with a quiet sound in her throat between a whimper and a growl. "She was walking with me paw in paw, and smiling, and she hugged me like she used to—I was holding onto her so tight, because I knew there was something wrong, that it should be impossible. That she was _dead_." Efi's eyes squeezed shut. "I knew that any moment, she was going to disappear again... but for a while, I was so happy that Nature had given her back to me. For a while, everything was all right."

"Until you awoke."

"Yeah," Efi mumbled. "The good dreams hurt even worse than the bad ones, don't they?" She was silent for a time, leaving Zohaqan to ponder the truth of what she had said. "What if my dream does mean something? Maybe Mom's spirit was telling me that she finally made it to the place of the ancestors." Efi's eyes shone through the dimness of the cave.

"Perhaps."

They both said nothing for some minutes longer, until Efi murmured a thought almost too quietly for Zohaqan to hear. "Maybe Nakis made it there, too."

He felt the living nightmare of separation closing in again, settling like a heavy shroud around his heart. "Perhaps."

* * *

Efi broached the subject of Nakis's memorial again on the two hundredth day she visited Zohaqan's cave. "I really think you should see it," she pressed him, trying to catch his gaze while he stared at the wall and refused to meet her eyes. "Come out and I'll show you."

"I cannot." The day had dawned chill and overcast. Late Scion stormclouds had gathered with the promise of a downpour, though not by Zohaqan's doing; he still did not trust that the rain and lightning wouldn't turn to flood and conflagration if he were to call upon the storms himself. "Do not ask it of me again."

"But it's important!"

"To whom?" Zohaqan snapped. "He is dead. He does not care whether anyone pays respects to him."

"That isn't true and you know it." The cub fluffed out her fur to counteract the drop in air temperature that accompanied the djinn's stony silence. "Wherever he is now, his journey must be over. If you speak at the place where his memory is honored, he'll hear you." She grimaced against the cold. "You could say goodbye."

"Why would his spirit have ties to this place any longer?" Zohaqan asked in clipped tones. "It is only right that he be with his ancestors—that he be reunited with the home that was taken from him before we ever met. The memorial to him here... It is a monument to his death in the land of his exile, built by near-strangers." His voice lowered to a hiss. "It is _not_ the place where his memory is honored. There is no such place."

"Yes, there is." Efi stood up and took one of Zohaqan's hands in both her forepaws, tugging on it insistently.

He could have broken the cub's grip, but not without the risk of hurting her. "What are you doing?"

"You've told me as much of his story as you could," Efi said as she began to drag Zohaqan toward the shadowed exit of the cave. "We may not have known him like the human family he left behind, but you and I can still honor his memory."

"Let me go, mortal Efi." He made himself immovable, but the effort tired him. His form wavered, leaving droplets of dew on Efi's claws.

"Please, Zohaqan." The djinn sagged in defeat, too exhausted to continue resisting her. Efi blinked when they emerged into the dim sunlight and let go of his hand. "Nakis had friends here. He had a home here. This land is where he died," she said, spreading her arms to indicate the island and its surrounding waters, "but he _lived_ here, too, and I know he was happy here—because this is the place where you loved him."

"Nothing of that remains," said Zohaqan. His voice was echoey and faint as he clenched his wavering fists. "The Inquest defiled this place, and I destroyed what was left. There is nothing that honors his life here now... Only death."

Efi shook her head. "I know that the victims' memorial wasn't enough... You're right, it didn't feel like the right way to honor him. We could do better." She took a deep breath and marched past Zohaqan, then turned back to address him with her forelimbs crossed protectively over her chest. "That's why... I asked everyone to help me make a better one. One that would help to sing his story. So please," she entreated, "please come see it, and tell me if it's worthy of his spirit."

"What?" Zohaqan whispered. The cub reached for his hand with a shy smile.

"Over here. Look." She beckoned him toward the tree with Nakis's carving on it, around to the side that overlooked the eastern shore. On the ground beneath its boughs, a pile of stones formed a small cairn. Efi knelt in front of it and dug in a pocket of her bandolier to retrieve a piece of shining sea-glass, which she laid among the offerings of flowers and luminescent blue-green crystals that surrounded the cairn.

Zohaqan stared down at the monument while Efi closed her eyes and hummed the notes of a song. "You... created this... for him?" Nakis would have loved the way the stones caught the light, like sunrise on the waves.

Efi nodded. "Boticca built most of it—and Olwyn's dad made this windcatcher, see? All the kids contributed, too." She looked up at Zohaqan and pointed to the flat, smooth surface of the capstone. "Sandshifter Otho helped me carve this, and enchanted it so the words wouldn't fade." Dazed by the force of an emotion he couldn't name, Zohaqan bent down to read the epitaph.

 _We remember Nakis_  
_Weaver of elements, lover of song and truth, heart-mate of Zohaqan_  
_c. 1507 DR–66 Zephyr 1531 DR_  
_May his spirit find rest in Nature's arms_

"I know it isn't as good as one that his human family could make," Efi said, standing up and scuffing a paw nervously into the sand, "because nobody knew when he was born, exactly. The Commander told me that's what the ' _c_ ' means, and how the humans count years in Elona. Oh, and here—" She fished a string of wooden beads out of her sash and held it out to Zohaqan. "I got this back from the other memorial site, in case you wanted to leave an offering." Her whiskers twitched when the djinn made no move to take it, only stared wordlessly for long moments at the small bracelet in Efi's paw. "Zohaqan?"

Slowly, he extended one index finger to lift Nakis's prayer beads on a breath of wind. They clicked together with an achingly familiar sound. "Mortal Efi," he whispered. "I... thank you." The words felt strange as he intoned them. Djinn are as ill-used to expressing gratitude as they are to saying goodbye.

"You're welcome." Efi met his eyes with a shyness that belied her obstinacy, her heart of steel. "You really are welcome, you know—I mean, among the Olmakhan." Her voice took on the cadence of a ritual speech, or perhaps a song. "We welcome you to share in nature's gifts. This island is your home as well as ours."

Zohaqan lowered the string of prayer beads to rest on the mound of stones. "Leave me in solitude, and do not fear," he responded in the same rhythm. "I will not raise a hand against your home."

Efi inclined her head and backed away a few steps. "All right. I think our bargain is done now." Her ears flicked and she offered a hesitant grin. "Zohaqan... You might not think you're my friend, but I'm still _your_ friend. So you should come and visit any time you want." The cub whipped around and dashed up the cliff path before waiting for Zohaqan to speak a reply.

He spoke after her when she was already too far away to hear him, his voice the same timbre as the rain that hissed through the forest leaves and battered the breaking waves. "Goodbye... friend Efi." Zohaqan settled on the ground beside Nakis's cairn. He lifted his face to the clouds as wind stirred the treetops, bracing himself for a far more onerous farewell. "My Nakis... my heart-mate." No more words would come. "I'm sorry, my love, but I can't..."

Thunder sounded from beyond the cliffs. Zohaqan wrapped his arms around the empty air, bowed his head away from the rain, and returned to his cave to wait out the storm in silence.

* * *

The storm had begun to sweep out to sea. Softer now, the rush of the waters was once more a distant murmur rather than a clamoring plea for Zohaqan to join in their dance. He could ignore it, as he must, even though he felt the call of his own name on the wind. _Zohaqan,_ whispered the air, brushing over him like a lover's caress. _Zohaqan._

"Leave me be." Zohaqan did not have the energy to express his derision with more than a sigh. "Hearing the wind speak with the words of men... I have gone mad indeed."

 _I heard you, my love. I heard you calling me... I've found my way back to you._ The wind... The wind had never spoken with a singular voice, not like that. It couldn't be— Trembling with a sudden rush of longing, Zohaqan drifted out of the cave, toward the tree. It was dark and cold in the pre-dawn. The last of the rain cloaked the eastern sky in swathes of dull gray.

 _"Zohaqan."_ It was a beloved voice that spoke, at once recognizable and wrong, echoing in the air. " _I'm here._ "

"No, my Nakis," Zohaqan whispered, afraid to lift his head. "You are not really here."

 _"Look at me, love."_ Zohaqan raised his eyes to the image of his lover. Nakis stood beside his cairn, dark and beautiful and perfect as Zohaqan remembered him, his hair waving in the wind. Raindrops were falling through his form to spatter beneath his feet. _"I've traveled so far to see you... but I'm here now. It's all right."_

"Please go." Zohaqan couldn't tear his gaze away from Nakis's familiar, dimpled smile. "I cannot bear to look at you like this, when I know that you are so far away." This was a projection only, an echo, tantalizingly close, calling across the Mists and soon to fade with the rising sun. It could not be otherwise.

 _"What do you mean? I'm right here."_ The figure reached a translucent hand down to where the string of prayer beads lay coiled on top of the cairn, slick with rain. To Zohaqan's shock, ethereal fingers crooked around the bracelet and maneuvered it onto the ghost's wrist. _"I think I'm getting the hang of that,"_ Nakis said with a widening grin. _"You have no idea how hard it is to move things around when you have to use your mind instead of your hands—oh, wait, maybe you do."_ He winked.

Zohaqan felt that he was shaking apart, like when the Inquest had tried to quell the source of his magic. "But—no, it can't be, your spirit is—" Dread choked his words. "What necromancy has trapped you here, my Nakis? Why aren't you with your loved ones in the Mists?"

 _"I'm not trapped here,"_ Nakis said. _"I walked through a portal of my own free will."_ He laughed, as though to dismiss the very concept that any power could force him to be where he did not belong. _"I wandered around a long time trying to find it—or, I think it was a long time, it's hard to say. Then I fought in a battle... I'll explain that later. Oh, Zohaqan, I have so much to tell you..."_

"But your family," Zohaqan protested, "your home—your gods—"

 _"I've made my peace with them,"_ Nakis interrupted him firmly. _"I've had enough of war and death to last a lifetime—several lifetimes, in fact. Now I just want to spend the rest of my afterlife with you."_ His face softened with uncertainty. He pushed a tendril of magic to touch Zohaqan's upper right hand; it felt alien and cold, so unlike the warm grasp of human fingers. _"Your—your ring is gone... Zohaqan..."_ The ghost's face pinched with hurt. _"Are we— You don't— You don't want me any more?"_

"No, I—I couldn't— My Nakis, you died, you _left me_ —" Zohaqan threw himself over Nakis's image, passing through it where he tried to embrace it. His essence tingled at the intersections between Nakis's spirit and his. "Oh, my Nakis," the djinn cried out, "you impossible, wonderful creature—I will always want you. I would keep you by my side forever; I don't care that you can't be kept. And if you break your oath to me again, I'll—I'll—" He sobbed in incoherent threats, nonsense invectives and disjointed terms of endearment, while Nakis hummed and hushed him.

 _"Shh, Zohaqan. I never broke my oath to you,"_ he murmured, _"I promised. Nothing else can claim me now, no one but you. I swear, I'm yours forever, for as long as you'll have me. Always."_

"How can you still want—?" Zohaqan asked, his voice rumbling louder than the retreating thunder. Nakis smiled sadly.

 _"I know it's not the same,"_ he said. _"I'm mortal. That part of me is gone, the part of me that—that loved you, in that way."_ He shook his head. _"It's more about choice, now, instead of love. The only thing that binds me now is my own choice, and I choose this."_ His voice was quiet and certain. _"I choose you."_

Zohaqan drank in his words like rainfall on parched earth. The presence of Nakis's spirit wasn't the same as having the fire of his touch, or the taste and scent of his body; those remained lost, but not forgotten. This was different. This was new.

"You would give up so much of yourself to be with me, my Nakis," Zohaqan murmured, leaning close to watch the unfamiliar swirls of ethereal energy in Nakis's eyes. "But once again, I find that I am too selfish to refuse you."

 _"That's my Zohaqan."_ Nakis's smile was as beguiling as ever. _"My selfish, terrible, proud, fascinating, magnificent djinn."_

"My love." Zohaqan invited Nakis to follow his gaze up into the brightening sky. "Would you... Will you dance with me?"

Lightning cracked through the clouds that swarmed over the ocean, pouring water out in a frenzy of wind and rain. As one, the lovers rose to meet the sunrise, and the storm sang to them both.


	17. Addendum: A page from Efi's songbook

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title and one line of the song are courtesy of the in-game collection that inspired this story. I don't have a tune in mind for this, as I'm no composer, but I imagine it in 7/8 time.

"The Storm That Consumes All"  
_Traditional Olmakhan song_

The clouds know no flight like love from a young heart—  
The wisps of white fluff that soar above the birds  
Are low-hanging fog compared to ardor's rush,  
For tender desire is song that transcends words.  


Sharper than talons and warmer than fur,  
Rapture will hold you in sweet thrall;  
Strong as the maelstrom that whirls to engulf you,  
Love is a storm that consumes all.

The waves know no joy like love between two friends—  
The crashing blue surf that surges at high tide  
Is dry desert dust compared to heart's delight,  
For trust ties its bonds where friends walk side by side.

Watch out when thunder rolls loud through the woods;  
Lightning will strike down the most tall;  
Sudden the bolt that will pierce through your heart-strings:  
Love is a storm that consumes all.

The sun knows no fire like love that incurred wrath—  
The blaze at high noon that burns and sears the land  
Is cool ocean breeze compared to envy's flame,  
For words said in spite leave scorch-marks as a brand.

The higher and hotter your passion, beware,  
Faster and steeper your downfall;  
Torrents of icemelt can wear down a mountain:  
Love is a storm that consumes all.

The skies know no rage like love that became hate—  
The hurricane gales that howl and rend the trees  
Are mild Zephyr rains compared to sorrow's bite,  
For grief carves its wounds as deep as the cold seas.

Hold your heart fast against breakers that whelm  
Fiercer than tempest and wind squall;  
Drowning out wisdom, the flood overtakes you:  
Love is a storm that consumes all.

The sands know no grit like love that endured pain—  
The scourging east winds that polish wood to stone  
Are soft yearling wool compared to spirit's strength,  
For faith builds its keep entrenched in blood and bone.

Though sadness and weariness weigh down your eyes  
Listen, for love answers your call;  
Cry out your anguish in tears neverending:  
Love is a storm that consumes all.

The vines know no growth like love that withstood fear—  
The branches in flower that climb to touch the sky  
Are brown withered stalks compared to restored hope,  
For light blooms anew when darkness has passed by.

When anger and pride tower high in your heart  
Let your love tear down that stone wall;  
Washing out rubble and burning your soul clean:  
Love is a storm that consumes all.


End file.
